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Agnes Wentworth. 


By E. FOXTOTT 

Sara Hammonci 'Pal'^rey 
AUTHOR OP “HERMAN,” AND “SIR PA VON AND 8T. PA VON,” 



o y 

PHILADELPHIA ! 

' J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1869 . 


♦ 


VZ-3. 

.T \12-K 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 

In he Clerk’s OflSce of the District Court for the Eastern District of 

Pennsylvania. 


TO 

MRS. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 

THIS STORY 

IS RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTION ATELT 

DEDICATED. 


April 25, 1869. 


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AGNES WENTWOETH, 


CHAPTER I. 

“But, Rosy, I’m certain he likes you.” 

“Very natural; most people do.” 

“But don’t you like him?” 

“ Of course. I like everybody.” 

“ Then why can’t you have him ?” 

“Agnes, Agnes, you really suffer for a scolding ; and, 
if I could only keep my countenance long enough, I 
would give it you. In the first place, he has not asked 
me.” 

“ But when he does ask you ?” 

“And, in the second place, he will not.” 

“Oh, why? How I wish I could ever tell what 
people mean from what they say ! Now, I think you 
only say that to me because I am only eleven, — to put 
me off.” 

“No, I do not. Even if there were no other reason, 
Mr. Yernon would not offer himself to me, because I 
should not let him.” 

“ How could you help it?” 

“ By never giving him a chance. Come here, minxy, 

( 3 ) 


4 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


and sit on my knee, and take those great eyes of yours 
out of mine ; and, when you are a woman, remember 
what I tell you now: women of honor don’t often 
receive many offers that they do not accept,” 

“I don’t understand.” 

“No; how should you? You are quite too young 
to think about such things. Do you understand 
that ?” 

“No,” answered Agnes, absently, her mind still 
laboring with her elder sister’s maxim. “When Cousin 
Etta Yan Rooselandt stayed here last winter, she said 
she had had seven offers ; and how could she accept 
more than one ?” 

A cloud came over Rosamond Wentworth’s charm- 
ing, mirthful, Hebe face. She looked half anxious, half 
disgusted. “ Dear little sister,” said she, “ I have 
been talking with you in play, because it amused me 
for once to get at some of your little ideas ; but, in 
good earnest, these are not pretty things to talk about ; 
and you won’t talk about them another time, will you ? 
— especially not with Etta Yan Rooselandt?” 

“ Why, she’s our own cousin 1 Isn’t she good ?” 

“Not a good companion for you.” 

“ Then isn’t she for you ?” asked Agnes, wrinkling 
up her white marble dome of a forehead with a very 
anxious expression. 

“ I can’t well help myself,” murmured Rosamond, 
to herself as much as to Agnes; but, looking down 
and seeing her unwonted gravity reflected in the little 
wistful, mobile countenance before her, she instantly 
added, “ Never mind, little angel ; there’s nothing for 
you to be troubled about. Only, for the future, when 


A ONES WENTWORTH. 


5 


people begin to talk about such things before you, 
walk off, if you don’t want to be turned into a little 
imp ; and hold your own little innocent tongue.” 

“ Only not to you, dearest Rosamond, — only not to 
you, — only this once!” cried Agnes, sliding through 
her sister’s arms to her feet, and clinching her knee 
with her own clasped hands. “ Oh, Rosamond, this 
once let me speak ; and then, if you must kill my one 
hope in life, T will build a cold, stony tomb of silence 
over it. Oh, Rosamond, you are so beautiful and 
good ! He is so noble ! He will be so great ! He 
will be a glorious painter. You would be his wife. 
He would be my brother. He would paint for you. 
You would work for him. I would help you. He 
would make fame for you. You would make happi- 
ness for him. We would go to Italy, and get away 
from all the dress and fuss and people here, and lead 
such a beautiful free life. When visitors came, they 
would be artists, too, and not tell about law cases 
and cheating, or eating and scandal, but the splendid 
statues and pictures and temples they were doing. But 
if you disappoint him it will break his heart. He will 
die; and there will be the end.” 

“Agnes, Agnes, hush I You are out of your wits. 
Get up ; somebody will come in and hear you. Don’t 
you know how you hate to work?” 

“There is nothing I couldn’t do in a noble cause, — 
except, perhaps, backstitch and run.” 

“Don’t you remember you asked me, when I was 
married, to give you a black pony ?” 

“ Yes; and you said you would.” 

“Very well ; people must keep their promises. Now, 
1 * 


c 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


if I married a poor artist, I couldn’t give you a black 
pony. ” 

“ Well ; but — aren’t there a good many donkeys in 
Italy ?” 

“ Plenty, I believe ; but I am not going to be one of 
them, little dear, nor his wife.” And Rosamond gave 
Agnes a kiss, and ran away from her with the prettiest 
laugh in the world. 

Agnes and Rosamond Wentworth, sisters as they 
were and fondly attached to one another, were almost 
strangers. They had been separated for the most part 
from the very birth of the younger, by one of those 
rash and arbitrary death-bed dispensations which the 
departed — if they were not forbid — might gladly leave 
the joys of paradise, or, on pain of tenfold penalties, 
burst the gates of the eternal prison, to come back and 
undo. 

Their mother was a pretty, shallow little belle from 
New York, and unhappy, lonely, and homesick in Bos- 
ton. Mr. Wentworth, a dry, honorable, able, sarcastic 
man, was proud of her grace and beauty, and, in his 
way, fond of her. But she was no companion for 
him ; and his fondness exhibited itself chiefly in his im- 
mersing himself from morning till night, and almost 
from night till morning, in business, that he might 
make the more money for her to spend. She did not 
object to the money; she did so, however, to the appar- 
ent neglect on his part, and solitude on her own, 
through which it was won. She pined for her “ dear 
New York.” Her chief thought was, to secure her 
own old light-hearted life there to her little pet six-year- 
old Rosamond, when she felt herself sickening and 


A ONES WENT WOR TIL 


7 


foreboded that it might be unto death. She demanded 
and obtained her husband’s promise, that if it should 
prove so — he had no idea that it would — her favorite 
sister, the wife of Mr. Egmont Yan Rooselandt, should 
have the little beauty for her own. Her baby, Agnes, 
was born ; but she did not live to see it. 

Mrs. Wentworth would probably have known the 
character of Mrs. Yan Rooselandt but imperfectly, 
even if, at the time of her marriage, her sister’s char- 
acter had been formed for her to know ; but probably 
it was not. Most people who attain to the perfection 
of worldliness, like most who attain to the perfection 
of saintliness, do so, I imagine, by degrees. A merci- 
ful Providence allows many of us a good deal of time 
to consider our ways before we reach the end of them. 
The young aunt, I always heard, made a detour from 
a tour of pleasure to claim her charge, and bore it off 
to her home, covered with kisses and with tears. 
Later in life, when I had the melancholy pleasure of 
making her acquaintance, Mrs. Yan Rooselandt seemed, 
indeed, to love the world beyond anything ; but next 
best — even beyond her own daughters, they said — she 
loved Rosamond Wentworth. The Misses Yan Roose- 
landt said, further, that they did not blame her for it; 
nor did I. Miss Rosamond must have had a rarely 
delightful nature to have so much of it remain delight- 
ful after so much of it must have been spoiled by the 
domestic and social atmosphere in which she lived. 
She was frank, brave, clever, gay, and kind, and walked 
through many frivolities and follies comparatively un- 
scathed, enshrined in a native dignity which never for- 
sook her. Lastly, to descend from generals to partic- 


8 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


ulars, if she did always urge her mother’s dying 
request, and her father’s promise, as an excuse for not 
exchanging her aunt’s gay household and incessant 
festivities for her quiet natural home in Boston and the 
care of her younger sister, still, her bi-yearly visits and 
pettings made the most exciting episodes in the ro- 
mance of Agnes’s childhood. 

Of Agnes, we shall know more by and by. At that 
time, one would have said there was not much to know 
of her, but a plain, thin, pale little school-girl, with 
short, dim flaxen hair, and a striped gingham frock. 


CHAPTER II. 

As to the subject of the conversation with which 
our chronicle begins, — Mr. Ernest Vernon, — he did 
like Miss Wentworth, and more than like her. He 
was all ready to propose himself to her; and she would 
not give him a chance. He did mean to be a painter, 
and perhaps would become a glorious one. At pres- 
ent, however, he was nothing more nor less than a 
senior at college, and a pretty sick one at that. Play- 
ing at genius, it had pleased him to over-smoke and 
under-sleep himself, under-eat and over-work himself ; 
and he was now lying in a brain-fever in the chamber 
overhead. Walter Wentworth, his classmate, and the 
brother of Agnes and Rosamond, had invited him 
home to pass a Sunday, in hopes that the little change 
of air and scene would help him to throw off his head- 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


9 


ache ; and there his headache had thrown him on his 
back. 

He saw everything wrong. He felt everything 
wrong. The flowers glowered upon him out of the 
wall-paper in his shaded room, mimicked ugly old 
witches, and made wicked old faces at him. Then 
his sofa, for be had resisted — up to this time success- 
fully — being kept in his bed, every minute or two 
metamorphosed itself into a rack in one of the cells of 
the Inquisition. The rack, to be sure, did not hurt 
him so much as he expected. It only made him tingle 
a little and feel rather numb. But just as he had his 
mind made up to it, it turned over with him, and 
dropped him in a bed of live coals. The coals, again, 
did not burn him very severely ; — this he attributed to 
the numbness previously produced by the rack; — in 
fact, the sensation of them was scarcely more acute 
than that caused by a mustard plaster ; and he had 
some idea of having heard Dr. Brodio say, some 
days or weeks or years before, that such a plaster 
might remove the Inquisition — or “ the irritation he 
could not remember which. But, at any rate, how- 
ever much fortitude a man might have, it was trying 
never to know what was coming next, and just as you 
became used to one thing, and had summoned up all 
your resolution to bear that without hallooing and 
alarming the whole house, to have it 

** Suffer a something change 
Into something rich and strange.” 

Still, his sufferings were made tolerable to him by 
the fact that they were all endured for Rosamond 


10 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


Wentworth. In order to cover her escape from them, 
he was enduring them in her stead, in the flounced 
pink silk dress — terribly tight he found it — in which 
he last saw her, and with her wreath of roses pinned 
fast to his scalp with long thorns, which he had not 
happened to remark when she wore them. 

His hearing, meantime, was affected only by being 
intensely quickened. He could hear the bells ring, 
and the servants go up and down stairs, and so forth 
and so forth, in the houses all along the south side of 
Beacon Street from Park Street to School Streets 
Thus it happened that he heard the whole of the above 
conversation. He had no way to put a stop to it, nor 
wits enough left to stop his own ears, as he would at 
least have tried to do, if he had had his senses prop- 
erly; for, whatever else he was or was not at this 
time, a more gentlemanly fellow I never knew. Thus 
it happened again that, when Dr. Brodie paid him a 
second visit that day, he found him sinking. 


CHAPTER III. 

Left to herself, little Agnes fidgeted up and down 
the room. Her talk with her sister had not only dis- 
appointed, but unsettled her. The idea that “life” 
must be “a system of compromises,” for the first time 
dawned, though dimly, upon her mind. Such it must, 
in a measure, be to us all. The only question for us 
is, how to surrender the low to the higher, — the worse 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


11 


to the best. Oh, that we could only find out any way 
to be quite unworldly, and still to ride our hobbies I 

Could Rosamond be a mercenary young lady ? How 
shocking ! But then a black pony, — how delightful ! 
— with .a long tail, thick mane, and an easy canter ! 
How Agnes would sweep along into Elysium upon 
him, and fancy herself a princess riding to war against 
wicked giants, or an angel flying over clouds and stars, 
or — but never mind. Great pictures were nobler things 
than little ponies ; they lasted longer and did more 
people good. And then to have poor, pleasant Mr. 
Yernon break his heart, and dear kind Watty lose his 
best friend I Oh, she would tell Rosy, of course, it 
was no matter about the pony ! But then she was 
afraid even that would do no good. She could not un- 
derstand Rosamond. Young people could not expect 
to understand old ones ; and Rosy was very old, — 
eighteen. 

Agnes wished she were a beauty like Rosamond, or 
a genius like Mr. Yernon, — or something. It was “ so 
horrid not to be anything at all, and never going to 
be.’’ She stamped to and fro in her walking-shoes, and 
checked herself reproachfully, remembering the sick 
man’s head. She went on tiptoe to the window, and 
looked out at the near graves of the Granary Burying- 
Ground. Then she stood before the looking-glass, 
twisted her little fingers in her fore-locks, and wished 
they curled naturally. Agnes detested fineries, but 
had a natural leaning towards everything that was at 
once simple and pretty. 

The door opened softly; and a tall, red haired, and 
red-freckled man-servant said consequentially in one 


12 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


burst of elegant volubility, “ Miss Agnes, Miss Went- 
worth desires me to say that, if you will immediate 
repair to her apartment, she will personally supervise 
your toilet and conduct you in the kerridge to the feat 
o’ Sham Peter to Watertown.” 

It is to be hoped he attributed the ecstasy which 
flashed over Agnes’s countenance to that which really 
caused half of it, the prospect of the fUe champUre and 
of going out for once with her sister She scampered 
up-stairs with the noiseless nimbleness of a squirrel, 
and tapped at Rosamond’s door. 

Rosamond opened it, in her white frilled wrapper, 
and said, ‘‘Now shut your eyes.” 

“ Shut my eyes ! What for ?” cried Agnes, obeying 
notwithstanding. “ Oh, Rosy, what shall I put on ?” 

“ Nothing,” answered Rosamond, leading and guid- 
ing her in. “ I’m going to dress you myself this time, 
my little dolly, and see what can be made of you. Now, 
will you keep your eyes shut ?” 

“Yes. What fun!” 

“ Whatever happens ?” 

“ If I possibly can. I wonder what you are going 
to do to me.” 

“ Nothing dreadful,” said Rosamond, “ whatever the 
effect may be.” And for some time she did nothing 
worse than comb and card Agnes’s flax smoothly and 
gently, and stroke it into glossiness with her soft, 
steady, plump hand. 

“I shall go to sleep.” 

“ I shall wake you presently,” said Rosamond, let- 
ting her alone for a moment. “Now hold your head 
still.” 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


13 


“Oh, Rosy, I smell hot iron! Do take care. Can’t 
1 open my eyes ?” 

“No, no. Remember, you promised. I’ll take the 
best possible care of you; — there.” 

“I know you’ve been pinching my hair.” 

“ What an idea !” , 

“Now mayn’t I look?” 

“Not yet: — before a great while, though. Now this 
gloomy old frock must come off.” 

“ I smell something sweet, like lilies.” 

“ With your nose, or your imagination?” 

“ Only my eyes could tell that.” 

“Well, you may use them now.” 

“Who’s that picture in the glass? — Why, Rosy, it’s 
1 !” The deep, bright, pure rose-color that bloomed in 
the little girl’s pale cheeks only in moments of rare ex- 
citement, gushed into them now, and helped to justify 
her sister’s infallible genius for dress and her own de- 
light. 

“You do look very pretty I” cried Rosamond, tri- 
umphantly ; and she was too polite, even to a child, to 
add, “for once.” 

“Rosamond, you are a fairy godmother; and, while 
my eyes were shut, you touched me with a wand.” 

“Which smelt like curling-tongs?” 

“I had no dress like this; where did you get it ?” 

“ Out of fairy-land, to be sure, or else out of one of 
mine.” 

“ One I stepped on and tore, — I remember. What 
a dear good sister ! But who made it for me ?” 

“Your fairy godmother, if that is I.” 

“ But when ?” 


2 


14 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“ When you were asleep.” 

“ How much time and trouble it must have taken!” 

‘‘ People must take some time and trouble about 
dress, if they want pretty looks, you see, Agnes.” 

“ ThaPs a pity ; only the lilies don^t ; oh, how sweet 
these are!” 

Agnes stood still, gazing into the Psyche in artless 
gratitude and pure artistic pleasure. She saw a slight, 
straight little figure, with all its angles and hard out- 
lines rounded and softened into grace by the folds of 
full, translucent, green muslin, that terminated only at 
the wrist and throat in white gauzy frills. Up and 
down the middle of the waist was fixed, with pre- 
Raphaelite precision, a single stalk of white garden- 
lilies, with their buds and green leaves ; they are diffi- 
cult flowers to arrange, but defied Rosamond’s invin- 
cible fingers in vain. On the head rested lightly a tiny 
plain straw hat with a white dove’s wing fixed in it, 
according to the pretty fashion (prevalent since, but I 
believe then first invented by Rosamond Wentworth) 
which makes children look like little Mercuries. Be- 
neath peeped wondering out, Agnes’s very peculiar but 
very expressive and interesting face, softened, shaded, 
and enlivened almost into beauty. 

If ever beautiful, however, it must be so in defiance 
of rule ; regular it was not, and could never be. The 
forehead was too high and broad for that. A profes- 
sional hair-dresser would probably have plastered the 
hair down over it, and made Agnes look as if she wore 
a wig. Rosamond, being an amateur extraordinary, 
did no such thing. She saw how very smooth, white, 
and finely moulded the frontispiece in question was, 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


15 


and how piquant was the contrast of its noble in- 
tellectuality with the infantine character of the rest 
of the face. Therefore she contented herself with 
merely setting it in a frame of pale golden curls, which 
if not natural meritaient Men de VUre,'^ and harmo- 
nized well with Agnesis large, clear, amber-colored eyes. 
The June sunset, glowing through the oriel, made a 
background for the child ; and she looked as ethereal 
as a little Saint Agnes in a stained glass window. 

Rosamond meanwhile was hurrying on her own re- 
sumed dressing. “ Pull the bell, darling, will you ?” 

‘‘ Let me help you, dear Rosy ; oh, do !” 

“ No, thank you ; you’d tumble your frock ” 

Agnes rang ; and up came her Yankee nurse, looking, 
as that excellent woman usually did, as if life had 
brought .her something bitter to take and she had 
swallowed it, but it did not agree with her. “ Can I 
assist 3^ou, Miss Wentworth ?” 

“ Yes, please, Mrs Tibbets ; fasten my dress. Doesn’t 
your baby look pretty ?” 

“She does, very pooty indeed — the back o’ the 
head,” added nurse, bringing herself up short. 

She spoke the truth when she began ; but she was 
one of those edifying religionists who think it proper 
to equivocate a little now and then — not to say to tell 
some fibs — for righteousness’ sake. Practically, she 
was delighted to see her charge so well set off. Theo- 
retically, she thought it incumbent upon her to lose no 
opportunity, in her charge’s presence, of bearing her 
testimony against vanity. 

Rosamond took it as a joke, and laughed. 

Poor little Agnes took it literally, and could have 


1C 


A ONES WENT WOR TH. 


cried. Was she really herself so very ugly, that — after 
Rosy had taken so much pains with her, and certainly 
made her look better than she ever did before in her 
life — not even her own nursey could say that, even for 
this single once, she looked pretty ? She could not see 
for herself that she wa,s any uglier than people in gen- 
eral ; but then it was said that people never could see 
themselves. But then how could Rosy say she looked 
pretty ? Oh, dear, how hard it always was to get at 
the real truth of things 1 At all events, her poor little 
rare pleasure at the Psyche was spoiled ; she was 
ashamed to look in it any more. She turned from it 
and came up to the dressing-table. 

“ The coach has not come, I hope, Mrs. Tibbets?” 
said Rosamond, leaning back to have her shawl laid 
over her shoulders ; “ I heard the door-bell, I thought, 
some time ago.’’ 

“ No’m : ’twas the doctor.” 

“ Oh, what did he say?” cried Agnes, looking up. 

“Well, he said that young Mr. Yernin’s a pooty 
sick man ; he wants him to have beef-tea every hour,” 
answered nurse, as sepulchrally as if the prescription 
had been the lyrical “ cup of cold p’ison.” 

“ Poor fellow!” said Rosamond, taking up her fan. 
“ Is there any beef in the house, I wonder?” 

“Not much of any; John said he’d go for more, as 
soon as he’d done his knives.” 

“I had better stop the coach and order it as we go 
by; there is a butcher’s shop in Charles Street, isn’t 
there? Why, Agnes, don’t sit down so, childy. See 
her frock. Just smooth her down again, nurse. Make 
haste, darling. That last ring must have been the 


AGIiES WEN'TWORTIL 


11 


coachman’s ; and I must be early, to make sure of 
meeting my chaperon.'^ 

Agnes stood up mechanically, but looked wilted from 
head to foot. Oh, nurse, do you suppose the doctor 
thought he wouldn’t get well ?” 

“ I don’t know nothing what he thought, child ; that 
was what he said. I guess he thought he was a pooty 
sick man; and in the midst o’ life we’re in death.” 

“ Oh, what a beautiful day spoiled !” 

“ You know that’s jest what I’m always a-tellin’ of 
you, Agnes. You don’t never know what a day may 
bring forth. Why, take care, lovey I — don’t you do so! 
You’ll rumple up all your nice curls; an’ then what’ll 
your dear sister say ?” 

Agnes unclasped her little hands from her temples, 
slowly left the room, and crept down to the coach, in 
which Rosamond was already seated impatiently wait- 
ing for her. “Dear Rosy,” she whispered, “please 
don’t want me to go.” 

“Why, Agny, what is the matter?” 

“ Mr. Yernon ” 

“Well?” 

“ Nurse seems to think ” 

“ My dear, what does she know ?” 

“Rosy, can you assure me that he will get well ?” 

“Why, no, Agnes, I can’t do that exactly; but 
neither can nurse assure you that he won’t. I hope 
he will, I’m sure. She does very wrong to frighten 
you. Come, pet, jump right in, and put it all out of 
your little curly head.” 

“ I can’t put it out of my head. Oh, dearest Rosy, 
don’t want me to go I” 


2 * 


18 


AGXES WENTWORTH. 


“But what possible good can it do for you to stay ? 
And it would be very dismal for you.” 

“ Oh, I don’t know ; but I couldn’t possibly be dan- 
cing at anybody else’s home while somebody might 
be dying at ours. If I went, I’m afraid I should burst 
out crying, sooner or later, before all the company.” 

Rosamond was afraid of it too. The child was 
struggling for self-command till, with the struggle, she 
trembled from head to foot ; but her sister knew that 
her nerves were not yet always within her own control. 
Her voice and her lip quivered. Her cheeks were 
again blanched ; her eyes had dark rings around them. 
Her green and white now made her look as ghastly as 
a fairy caught by daylight. Rosamond could not well 
prolong the discussion before the coachman, and was 
somewhat in fear, besides, of her father’s return from 
his club. He might bring with him some “ Puritan” 
scruples to interfere, in the circumstances, with her 
own departure ; and she was famishing for a little fun. 
Accordingly, she only said, “ Well, dear, I’m very, very 
sorry ; but I’ll try to bring you some flowers,” leaned 
back, and made a sign to the man, who drove off. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


19 


CHAPTER ly. 

Agnes returned into the house, feeling doubly 
dreary. The twilight hall seemed dark with the 
shadow of death. On the stairs she met nurse ; and 
nurse was vexed and astonished at seeing her back 
again. 

“Did you think I could want to go, after what you 
said V- 

“ What did I say?” 

“ Why, don’t you know? You said — I don’t know 
what you said ; but you made me think you meant 
poor Mr. Vernon was going to die.” 

“ I never said ho such a word.” 

“ If you did not mean so, indeed, nurse, I think it 
was cruel to frighten me so.” 

“ Now, don’t you go a-saying I frighten you, Agnes. 
I only wanted to solemnize jt’ou a little ; but you 
always have such a way of taking things.” 

So she had, — a rather peculiar way of takingHhings 
in earnest. It could not be more inconvenient to 
others than it was painful to herself. Would that 
way always be her way through our factitious life ? 
Would the pain afterward bring forth good fruits for 
herself and others ? Only time could show. In the 
mean time at least she was patient with those who 
were instruments to bring such pain upon her. She 
thought within herself, “ I’m sure I should think I 
was quite solemnized enough as it was, the chief of 


20 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


the time, living here all alone;” but to nurse she only 
rejoined, quite meekly, “I wonder if there isn’t anything 
I could do for Mr. Yernon, if you were to take me in 
to see him.” 

“No; I couldn’t take you in to see him. Your 
father wouldn’t like it.” 

“ Papa? — why not?” 

“’Cause it wouldn’t be proper.” 

“Oh, dear!” thought Agnes, “I wish it would 
always be proper to be kind. At least I will send 
a little note to Cambridge, though, and tell Watty. 
He will come and see about Mr. Yernon, and do him 
much more good than I could.” 

She darted noiselessly up to her chamber. Her tiny 
desk stood by the window ; and the west still glowed. 
She wrote quickly and briefly, taking care, however, not 
to alarm Walter more than she thought necessary, and 
gave her note to the chambermaid for the mail. Then, 
somewhat relieved and encouraged, she sat quietly 
wondering how much nurse had really meant, and 
looking out into the beautiful June shadows, on the 
dim gray tombstones among the feathered grass of 
the Granary. 

They were her favorite companions when Rosa- 
mond and Walter were away. She loved to plan 
conversations among them. There was the tall 
obelisk that she called “the father,” and the flat slab 
on pillars, that she regarded as the mother lying on a 
sofa with her children around her. The low, square 
shaft with the urn was the mother’s work-table and 
basket. The children were the smaller headstones. 
She had been allowed to go into the graveyard some- 


A ONES WE N'T WOE TH. 


21 


times; and she knew by heart the poor little dead 
names upon them, called now no more upon earth 
probably, except by her in the stillness of her own 
little lonely mind. She called the small headstones 
by these names, softened (as they were once most 
likely, in households, scattered since, that she had 
never known) into household diminutives, “ Harry,” 
‘‘ Susy,” “ Tommy,” and so forth. 

She pleased herself by fancying that these stones 
called by the names of children were allowed to play 
about the churchyard at night, though they were kept 
so still all day in order “ not to disturb the neighbors,” 
and that she had seen them jump out of the darkness 
sometimes when it thundered and lightened at her bed- 
time. She often threw flowers to the nearest ones, 
which, with a little effort, she could make her offerings 
reach from her window ; and, when she could get leave 
to go and carry bread to the homeless dog that lived 
among them, she wove them garlands, and almost 
hoped that they were glad when she crowned them 
and laid a nosegay on their mother’s work-table. 

But to-night a touch of reality was scattering all 
her dreams. As the city sounds came to her softened 
over the graves, — the noise of life through the hush of 
death, — she thought chiefly of the sufferer near her, so 
helpless and alone, with life and death perhaps strug- 
gling over him for the mastery. Was he to come 
forth to walk those near streets again, and talk with 
breathing men like those whose tones and words even, 
as they passed to and fro, she could sometimes catch? 
Or was his portion henceforth to be, like that of the 
forgotten forms in the ground before her, once as young 


22 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


and vigorous as he, only a small dark bed and coverlet 
of grass? She folded her little hands and prayed for 
him, that he might be raised from the dying, as the 
widov/’s son from the dead, and become a glorious 
painter to the glory of God, like Fra Angelico of 
whom she had read, and one of whose little angels 
gleamed above her against its golden background in 
the golden rays of the rising moon, trumpeting clearly 
to her soul through the eye instead of the ear. 

Thus she sat, calm, peaceful, and — in spite of the 
great disappointment and great anxiety of the day — 
growing almost happy in the feeling that she was 
alone with God, and that He had heard her prayer and 
would do His very best to answer it. Moments in 
which she felt these things were among the happiest 
which the motherless and solitary child had known. 
“ People often trouble me,” she used to say to her- 
self; “ God never does.” 


CHAPTER Y. 

Lo, there came a fumbling noise at the door, as if 
somebody without any hands was trying to open it. 
Agnes made haste to do so ; and in sidled nurse, with 
a large waiter, on which was set out supper for two, 
(including a sheet of Agnes’s favorite bakers’ buns 
with homceopathic sugar and three Zante currants 
apiece in them,) in a particularly tasteful set of black- 
white-and-gold baby-house china. The latter, given 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


23 


by Walter to Agnes on a birthday, was usually kept 
by nurse in a sort of honorable confinement. But, her 
secret heart just now aching for the loss of her ‘‘baby’s” 
pleasure, she had devised this more often sought than 
granted indulgence, as the best substitute in her 
power. 

Agnes, if old in some things for her age, was in 
others peculiarly childlike. She clapped her hands 
softly, brought forward an old claw-footed mahogany 
stand, set a chair for nurse, very hospitably shook 
hands, and exchanged with her the “ I hope I see 
you in the enjoyment of good health. Miss Went- 
worth,” and “How do you do, Mrs. Tibbets? I am 
delighted to see you,” usual on such happy occasions, 
and proceeded to pour out nurse’s green tea and her 
own “white,” of which milk and water formed the 
principal ingredients. 

“But what will papa do?” said she, pausing in her 
thirsty imbibition of that stimulating fluid. 

“Well, he won’t be home. He sent up the oflBce-boy 
to say he’d got to go over to Dodgester to make a sick 
gentleman’s will, an’ you needn’t expect him not till 
you sawr ’im.” 

“A sick gentleman’s will I” It recalled Agnes’s 
thoughts from festivities. “Nurse,” said she, “do you 
know how Mr. Yernon is now ? Has he had his beef- 
tea every hour ?” 

“Well, no, Agnes; I’m afraid he hasn’t. John said 
last time he cared it up, he wouldn’t do it again, ’cause 
Mr. Yernin he wouldn’t have it, nor ’twan’t no use.” 

Agnes’s hands dropped in her lap. “But, nurse, 
what is to be done?” 


24 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


‘Well, that’s jest what I say, Agnes. Says I to 
John, ‘ I don’t know nothin’ w^hat to do,’ says 1, 
‘’cause 1 know the doctor thought ’twas important. 
I'm a’most a mind to care it up myself an’ try if he 
won’t take it from me,’ says I. You see I said that 
jest to see how John would take it ; ’cause you know 
you always have to mind what you say to John.” 

“ Well ?” said Agnes. 

“An’ says John, ‘Take it an’ try, an’ welcome,’ 
says he ; ‘ an’ see ef you don’t take it out in tryin’.’ ” 

“ Well ?” repeated Agnes. 

“So 1 jest took it an’ run right up an’ stepped in ; 
an’ says I, jest as pleasant as I could, ‘Here’s your 
tea, sir ;’ an’ says he, ‘Anoint thee, witch !’ or words to 
that effect ; so I saw he was a little out ; an’ fust I 
thought I’d kind o’ hold his nose a little an’ jest put it 
right down gently; an’ then he looked at me so dread- 
ful, I thought perhaps ’twould be best not to excite 
him.” 

“ But then, nurse, I think we ought to send for the 
doctor.” 

“ Well, Agnes, so I said. But John he was a-readin’ 
the Transkip, an’ he didn’t think best to go, ’cause Mr. 
Wentworth might come in unexpected an’ want him. 
But Marthy she was a-goin’ right by to see her 
mother ; an’ she said she’d send him right up. But 
he ain’t ben ; an’ so I spose he’s out.” 

Agnes wrung her little hands. Then she considered 
a moment. Then, as nurse repeated her “ I don’t 
know nothin’ what to do,” she stood up and spoke : 
“ Then, nursey. I’ll tell you what must be done ; and 
I’ll tell papa the very minute he comes home, and take 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


25 


all the blame on myself, if there is any. If Mr. Yer- 
non died in this way, we should blame ourselves all our 
lives. You shall get me that tea ; and I shall give it 
to him. I think it is right ; and so God will help me.’’ 

Nurse demurred, as well she might; but of their two 
wills, Agnes’s was really the stronger, and perhaps 
had all the more power from its strength being usually 
held in reserve. Nurse rose, too, and stood irresolute. 
“ But it ain’t no use, lovey. You couldn’t make him 
take it ; how could you ?” 

“I shall coax him,” said Agnes, nothing doubting; 
and nurse had internal evidence of the potency of 
Agnes’s coaxings. 

They stole with their lamp into the passage, where 
the rejected restorative stood on the window-seat in a 
yellow, venomously ugly crockery bowl. Agnes 
peeped into it. Its aspect was such as to justify its 
rejection. “ Why, nurse, what does make it look so 
horrid ? — just like castor-oil ; — I dare say he thought it 
was, poor fellow I” 

“ My ! she went an’ never skum it ! Them ignorant 
Irish! I never! I took it up in a flurry jest on the 
edge o’ the evenin’, without seein’, an’ never thought 
nothin’ but what ’twas all right. Well, it don’t never 
do to say nothin’. I’ll jest take the grease right off 
myself, an’ heat it up here in the nurse-lamp ; an’ no- 
body won’t be none the wiser. ” 

“And I will run down to the china-closet and find 
something pretty to put it in. That makes the great- 
est difference with doses,” said Agnes, in the tone of 
experience. She had once had the measles ; “ so she 
knew.” 


3 


26 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“ Oh, Agnes, remember your noo gownd !” hissed 
nurse after her down the stairs, in a stage-whisper. 

“Oh, nurse, for pity^s sake don’t talk to me about 
gowns this night, if you don’t want to drive me fran- 
tic!” returned Agnes; but she did so in a not stage 
whisper, and merely for the relief of her own mind ; 
wherefore nurse’s was not wounded. 

Into the closet the little lady whisked ; where, by 
good luck, she did not find the despotic John. By 
further good luck, he had forgotten to take the keys of 
the cupboards. 

There w'as silver enough there, of the fashion that 
was thought pretty fifty years ago, in formal shapes 
incrusted with bands of minute Arcadian figures of 
sheep, shepherds, shepherds’ dogs, and nymphs. Per- 
haps it was pretty ; but Agnes did not think so. 

“ Finery and fuss I” she ejaculated, with her epithets 
of strongest reprobation. “ There’s a plain plated 
bowl now, with handles, that is better ; but I don’t 
think, on the whole, anything metal will do. It shines 
and dazzles so ; and we must have a lamp, to see what 
we’re about.” After a little more turning and peeping, 
and gentle opening and shutting of doors, and pulling 
out of drawers to climb up on, she found what she 
wanted. It was a tall white drinking-cup of the ex- 
quisite ware called Parian, often as beautiful in its 
models as in its substance. She set it in a salver, and, 
putting her little hands out of the window, filled them 
with fresh dewy leaves and tendrils from the Isabella- 
grape vine which ran up the wall beside. With these 
she lined the salver. Early hot-house grapes were in 
a basket on the shelf. Her neighbors, the Ardens, had 


AOXES WENTWORTH. 


27 


sent them in for Mr. Vernon; and the doctor had said 
he might have some. She looked lovingly at the 
brighter ones ; but her fastidious eye finally decided 
that they would only disturb the pure, cool harmony 
of her favorite purple, green, and white. Accordingly, 
she surrounded the foot of the cup with rich clusters 
of black Hamburgs, and stood a moment bewitched by 
the beauty of her own simple devices. Then she crept 
up with them to nurse, who poured in the tea, amber- 
colored, clear, and gently steaming. 

“Now, nursey, I think you’d better keep behind the 
door and just hold the lamp for me, and not let him see 
you again ; because he don’t know you, and perhaps 
he will me. But look in all the time, won’t you ? — so 
that, if he catches hold of me, you can come in and take 
me right away.” 

Nurse had not thought of that before. She made a 
snatch at Agnes herself; but it was too late. Agnes 
was in the room, by the sofa. The light shone full 
upon her little airy form ; and the sick man saw her. 

“Angel of God?” said his hollow voice. 

“ I have come to bring you this,” answered Agnes’s 
singularly clear, sweet, childish voice; “God sends it 
to you to do you good. You will take it?” 

Nurse, peeping through the crack of the door, saw 
a thin hand stretched slowly out, and Agnes putting 
the cup gently in it. There was a little pause ; and 
the cup was returned. Agnes replaced it on the 
salver, and came back in triumph. 

“He has taken it all. — Hark! Didn’t he speak 
again ?” 

They turned and listened at the open door. 


28 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


“Come back,” repeated the hollow voice, faintly; 
“angel of God, come back with the lamp.” 

“La, poor soul, he’s quite out! Better come away 
an’ leave him be, now; an’ mebbe he’ll drop off to 
sleep.” 

“Now I think,” said Agnes, “perhaps he had bet- 
ter just have the lamp if he wants it; because it is 
dreadful to be in the dark when you don’t feel like it, 
particularly if it frightens you. I’m not at all afraid 
to go in this time — he seems so gentle.” She took 
the lamp from nurse and carried it in. 

“Not that,” said he, hiding his dazzled eyes and 
turning away his head, — “the white lamp.” 

After an instant’s perplexity, Agnes gave back the 
lamp to nurse in the passage, and returned with the 
cup. 

That appeared to be what he wanted. “ Stay 
there,” said he; “ and light me through the Valley of 
the Shadow. Don’t leave me alone.” 

It seemed to Agnes like one of her day-dreams come 
true, — awful, but beautiful. She stood, — the bright 
spot in the dusky chamber, — patient and still, in all 
the sweet simplicity and unconsciousness of unspoiled 
childhood, gazing abstractedly upon the pretty things 
she held. The pretty things in which Rosamond had 
decked her, she had not yet had the heart to lay aside, 
— any of them ; and the lamp, which her nurse held 
as she sat on the floor in the passage, shone on the 
little white pinion above her head, on cheeks and eyes 
brightened again by her compassionate energy, on 
the lilies on her breast, her thin green draperies, and 
on the little hands, one clasping the cup' and the other 


AGNES WENTWORTH, 


29 


half buried among the verdant leaves and tendrils and 
purple grapes which hung over the edge of the salver. 

From time to time she glanced at her patient. His 
eyes were turned steadily toward her; but the lids 
drooped more and more, and he looked more and more 
tranquil. She was becoming tired ; but what of that ? 
How much more tired he must be, for they said he 
had not slept at all the night before. If nurse at the 
door only would not fidget and rustle so! If they 
could only put him to sleep! She did. His eyes 
closed, opened, closed again, and did not open; and 
his breathing grew slower and deep. 

As she crept out and, with her finger on her lip, 
drew nurse away, she heard the latch-key in the 
front door. Her father was coming in ; and, to her 
great joy, the doctor was with him. She went down 
to meet them. 

‘‘You can’t tell me anything about young Vernon, 
I suppose, Mr. Wentworth?” the doctor was saying. 
“ They sent for me an hour or two ago, it seems, to 
come to him again.” 

“No; I am concerned to hear it. Agnes, do you 
know what the matter is ?” 

“Papa,” said Agnes, standing very straight, “no- 
thing in particular’s the matter, now; but nurse said 
she was afraid you wouldn’t like what I did; and so 
I said I should tell you. Mr. Vernon seemed very 
strange, and wasn’t willing to take his beef-tea; and 
Hr. Brodie was out; and nobody was at home; and 
we didn’t know what to do; and so I made her let me 
go in and give it to him.” 

“Fom made him take it, did you, missy?” said the 
3 * 


30 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


doctor, looking comically down upon her. “ How did 
you do it ? — moral suasion, or physical force 

“ Oh, I don’t know exactly. Nurse made it look 
good, and I made it look pretty, and told him he 
would take it; and he did.” 

‘‘ It won’t do to have these things left to chance, 
though,” said the doctor, turning to Mr. Wentworth. 

“ Certainly not. I am very sorry if there has been 
any neglect on the part of my servants. ” 

“ Perhaps their zeal is greater than their knowledge. 
It is a case rather for a regular nurse. Shall I give 
you the address of two or three ? — I know of a capital 
one who left a place this morning.” 

“By all means. Here are pen, ink, and paper. Agnes, 
ring the bell. John, take this paper; go to number 

Myrtle Street; ask for Miss — Miss Manna; and 

tell her you will bring her bag, and I will give her a 
dollar extra to come back with you at once. Agnes, 
you do wrong to sit up so late. Go to bed, my 
dear.” 

Agnes kissed him, and went up to her chamber, 
wishing she might only have waited long enough to 
hear Dr. Brodie’s opinion of the poor sick man. She 
was somewhat dispirited, too, at being blamed, and 
blamed before her friend the doctor. Rosy had not 
come home yet; and if she could only have gone with 
Rosy she would have been later still, and had so 
much pleasure, besides, out in the free, green, beauti- 
ful country ! And how could she have gone to bed 
much earlier, either, all things considered ? — and Park- 
Street clock was but just striking nine now. 

To add to her trials, nurse thought it necessary — 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


31 


for nurse was rather more scrupulous about her 
charge’s veracity than about her own — to say, as she 
undressed her, “Agny, how come you say that to Mr. 
Yernin about God’s sendin’ him that ’ere tea? Wasn’t 
that a little bit of a wrong story?” 

‘‘ Why, no !” said Agnes, turning about with a start, 
and facing her with eyes round with surprise. Don’t 
you know it says in the Bible that every good thing 
comes down to us from God? And isn’t everything 
good for us that does us good, whether we like it or 
not ? Why, that was what I always used to say to 
myself when I was sick, to make myself take all my 
medicine!” 

“Well, I want to know!” thought nurse to herself. 
“ h]f you ain’t a queer one ! Ef that ain’t a noo voo 
to take of ile and seny!” She said no more upon the 
subject; and Agnes could not judge whether she was 
acquitted or not. 

The child’s spirits were fairly worn out; and she 
shed a few tears when she was finally left alone to 
kneel at her bedside. The attitude, however, reminded 
her of her twilight petitions; and she was the one 
to chide herself now, for ingratitude. How peevish 
and wrong it was to mind trifles, when God had 
begun already to answer her prayer, and put poor 
Mr. Vernon to sleep, and sent for “a capital nurse” 
to take care of him ! 


32 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


CHAPTER YI. 

The next morning, things looked brighter. Agnes, 
who slept later than usual, awoke to see a retiring flap 
of the white frilled dressing-gown as it whisked out of 
her chamber-door. “ My good angel’s wing,” said she 
to herself “ What has she been flying in and. out for, 
I wonder ?” The next thing her winking eyes rested 
upon was a large nosegay of rich, old-fashioned garden- 
flowers, which commended themselves especially to her 
more romantic than exotic taste. 

The “ capital nurse” was in charge, and to be seen 
going into and out of the sick-room, pleasant-looking, 
light-footed, soft-voiced, skilful, watchful, and faithful. 
In answer to inquiries, she informed Mrs. Tibbets that 
she didn’t see why the patient shouldn’t do very well, 
if the hinges of all the doors were immediately oiled ; 
though he had seemed to be a little wandering between 
sleeping and waking, and talked about wanting a little 
angel that came in, the night before, and gave him 
light to drink out of a lamp. (Mrs. Tibbets kept her 
own counsel, and reported only the first half of this 
communication to Agnes. She was frightened at the 
very thought of their rashness, and in no mood to re- 
peat it.) 

Walter had received Agnes’s note, too, and succeeded 
in reading it. He came into town that very day, and 
thanked her for it, and told her that it was very thought- 
ful in her to write it. He came every day, henceforth. 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


33 


when he could get away from his recitations, and alter- 
nately petted her and sat with Yernon, while Miss 
Manna took a nap. Between the latter two and the 
doctor, Yernon did very well; and it was soon an- 
nounced that, in a few days more, he was to be helped 
down-stairs to lie on a sofa in the library for change of 
scene and air. 

Agnes was pleased to hear this ; but it happened, 
as it was apt to happen to the poor little girl, that her 
pleasure was presently dashed. Rosamond, who had 
been restless thoughout her visit, received an urgent 
letter of recall from Mrs. Yan Rooselandt, and begged 
Mr. Wentworth’s leave to rejoin her aunt at once at 
Newport. He made no objection. Poor little Agnes 
could scarcely command her voice enough to set forth 
hers : it was a whole fortnight sooner than she expected 
to lose her sister, and she would ‘'not come again for 
half a whole long year.” 

Walter, however, took Agnes’s part without her 
knowledge. One night, when she was gone to bed, he 
came down from Yernon’s chamber and found Rosa- 
mond, for a wonder, at home and alone. She was 
sitting in the bay-window of the library, and looking 
out with a softened face at the waning moon and the 
graves. 

“Rosamond,” said he, “are you really going to- 
morrow ?” 

“ Too true, I fear,” answered she, resuming her 
usual manner as she turned toward him ; “ everything 
looks like it, — trunks locked, and tickets taken.” 

“ I am very sorry for it.” 

“And so am I, Watty, — on some accounts.” 


34 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“ Then why can’t you put a stop to the whole busi- 
ness, once for all 

“My dear Walter, what can you mean? What a 
proposal 1” 

“ I am serious in making it, though.” 

“ It would be such a kind return to poor aunty, for 
one thing, after all the trouble she has had with me 
sooner or later, — hooping-cough and frocks and French, 
and so forth and so forth and so forth !” 

“ I rather think you have paid as you went.” 

“ I am sure I hope I have. Pretty ungrateful I 
must have been if I did not try. But — do you not see ? 
— that only makes me the more important to her now.” 

“ She has her own daughters.” 

“ Well, Watty ! — but it is not for me to tell tales out 
of school.” 

“ I dare say. I give up that point. But now. Rosy, 
don’t you think, at any rate, it is time that papa and 
Agnes had something like a home ? I don’t say any- 
thing about myself ; for of course it doesn’t make so 
much difference to me, out all the time cricketing and 
rowing and frolicking with the other fellows.” 

Rosamond’s eyes sparkled with merry mischief. 
“ Master Walter, at this stage of the investigation it 
would be very much to the purpose, if you would be so 
good as to state what answer anybody would get, who 
proposed to you to give up all your frolicking with the 
other fellows, and stay at home to make it a home foi* 
papa and Agnes.” 

“Pooh!” said Walter, looking much at a loss for 
anything except bloom; “ girls ought to be better than 
men.” 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


35 


“ Chapter and verse, please, teacher?’^ chirped Rosa- 
mond in a thin, pert voice, folding her hands and mak- 
ing herself as much as she could like a charity-scholar. 

“Pooh I everybody knows they ought.” 

“ Indorsed on the back of the Salique law,” quoted 
Rosamond, triumphantly, in a burst of sweet laughter. 
“ And — oh, the self-conceit of these potent, grave, and 
reverend seniors I — am I not better than you, I should 
like to know ? Did I ever, for instance, put flour in a 

tutor’s hat, or ?” She doubled up her pretty fist 

scientifically, and looked at it, to see that her thumb 
was in the right place, and then at him inquiringly. 

“ Go to fisticuffs with a boatman? No, Rosy,” said 
he, laughing in spite of himself, “I rather think discre- 
tion always has been the better part of your valor.” 

“ I don’t know about that.” 

“ No ? What was the story I heard, by the by, of 
your leaping that fiend of a racer of Dirk Van Roose- 
landt’s over a five-barred fence ?” 

“ Truth ; only not to be spoken at all times. I don’t 
mind your knowing, Watty; because I know I can trust 
you ; but it was all Dirk’s fault that it ever was known 
at all ; and if it ever comes to aunty’s ears it will make 
her angry with him and nervous about me, and is very 
likely to end in my having to pledge myself to mount 
nothing, henceforward, but a rocking-horse or the 
tamest of tame ponies.” 

“ Under such a penalty as that, I believe you may 
trust me.” 

“ After dinner one day, Dirk and some other youths 
were talking, and boasting, I suppose, of their horses. 
The others agreed with Dirk that his Knickerbocker 


36 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


was the handsomest ; but they said that it was still 
more vicious than handsome. Dirk betted, pretty heav- 
ily, that it would carry a lady safely over a five-barred 
fence. The next morning he was very sorry ; but they 
would not release him from his wager; and so, in great 
trouble, he came to me. I had ridden the horse before. 
I do not think it is ill tempered so much as ill managed. 
So I told Dirk, if he would give me his word to make 
no more bets until he came of age, I would try what I 
could do for him. But I did not want the fame of quite 
an Amazon, nor to make an open exhibition of myself. 
Therefore I required two other promises of Dirk as 
conditions : he should not tell who I was, and he should 
post the umpires too far off to recognize my face. There 
was really no great danger. There was no doubt 
Knickerbocker could do the thing if he would. I petted 
him and patted him, and gave him sugar and an apple ; 
and, when I put him at the fence, he swept on smoothly 
up to it, without swerving an inch, and cleared it like 
a bird.” 

“ Good luck, with your habit and all. But how did 
it come out who you were 

‘‘ That is the worst part of it. The umpires would 
not take Dirk’s word for my being a lady. They main- 
tained that I jnust be Zoyara or some other eques- 
trienne; till the poor boy was driven desperate, I sup- 
pose ; and, before I could reach the house again, he let 
one of them take his opera-glass.” 

“A pretty fellow I” 

“But, dear Walter, consider; he is only sixteen; 
and he has always had his older brothers to set him 
such an example !” 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


SI 


“ Prettier fellows!” 

“Now, Walter, you make me say things I ought 
not ; but how can you expect sons of Uncle V an Roose- 
landt to be exactly model men ?” 

“And now what is the excuse to be made for Uncle 
Van Rooselandt?” 

“Oh, ask Adam!” exclaimed Rosamond, coloring 
and laughing. “Really, Watty, you ought to remem- 
ber, and not make me forget, that it is not only our 
own family by blood, but mine by adoption, that we 
are speaking of.” 

“ Well, Rosy, I must say at least, I think you are a 
great deal too good for them all.” 

“ I don’t know about that,” answered Rosamond, 
more gravely, with that constitutional truthfulness 
which belonged to Mr. Wentworth and all his children. 
“ If I were good, perhaps I should make a martyr of 
myself, take your advice, Watty, tear myself away from 
my second mother, cut short all my gay young life 
with my earliest friends in dear, happy New York, and 
stay here to make Agnes play her scales, and to do the 
honors for papa’s big-wigs. At any rate, I hope I 
have too much of him about me to undertake to make 
the wrong cause seem the right. But, since there is 
no other counsel to defend this culprit, I hope no in- 
justice is done if I simply urge a few extenuating cir- 
cumstances and then recommend her to mercy. I love 
the Van Rooselandts, and they love me, by instinct, 
without much criticising or analyzing, — just as people 
do their own parents and brothers and sisters, I sup- 
pose, when they are brought up among them, — as I 
should have loved all of you if I had been brought up 

4 


38 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


with you ; and it was no fault of mine that I was not. 
you know, though I have to take the consequences. I 
do love you still, Watty, and darling little Agnes; and 
I hope I feel very dutifully to papa. But really I am 
scarcely acquainted with him; when he is not absent 
in body, he is so in mind ; and you are young and gay, 
and don’t want to be confined to me ; and I am young 
and gay, and don’t want to be confined to anybody ; 
and Agnes is a child — no companion for me, — and yet 
so much better than I, that I don’t honestly think 1 
am fit to have the charge of her. I could not have 
helped her to what she is; and what she will be, I 
might hinder. The fact is, I was plunged into a gulf 
of — well, worldliness is the right word for it, I suppose, 
— before I knew good from bad ; and I’ve drawn it in, 
I’m afraid, as a sponge does water; and, when I’m 
pressed, I can’t help giving it out again to all around. 
Here, in good, dull Boston, I feel just like a toad pre- 
served in granite. It is safe enough, no doubt, but 
so cold and stiff and heavy. The toad can live and 
perhaps grow fat ; but it can’t hop ; and what is life 
worth, if one can’t hop ? — Dear me ! see my watch ! 
How dreadful it will be to have to get up at six to-mor- 
row ! Kiss me, Watty ; I’m afraid I shan’t see you 
again. You’ll pet poor little Agnes more than ever, 
won’t you, for a day or two, till she gets over it ? — and 
✓ here is a trifle left in my purse, by good luck' to buy her 
something pretty.” 

Walter agreed to fulfil her behests ; and, to the credit 
of the temper of both, they parted on their usual good 
terms with one another. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


39 


CHAPTER YIL 

In two or three days more, Yernon was, according to 
expectation, established on a sofa in the library, look- 
ing thin, but handsomer than ever ; for the dingy 
swarthiness which had been wont at that time to cast 
a lowering shadow over his delicate, regular, classic 
features was cleared. Little Agnes, however, found 
his presence less than ever an equivalent for Rosa- 
mond’s. His spirits did not correspond with his com- 
plexion. He had always been subject to fits of melan- 
choly ; but they alternated with others of fascinating, 
or sometimes even wild, gayety. Now a habitual 
moodiness hung about him, which might have broken 
out into open ill humor if he had not been under the con- 
straint of a guest. As it was, the servants had a few 
stories to tell one another of his petulance ; and no 
especial gfatitude was expressed to Dr. Brodie. 

Yernon was not grateful to him yet. He was not 
glad to come back to life. He was brought back to it, 
like a half-drowned man, with many struggles. There' 
is this excuse to be made for him, that, in that border- 
land between soul and body which for want of a term 
we call “ the nervous system,” he was utterly misera- 
ble. His health was broken and his happiness wrecked 
and his ambition blighted, as he thought, forever ; and 
all this, poor boy, in his twenty-second year I 

His memory of the first part of his illness was con- 
fused enough ; but two things still stood out in it dis- 


40 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


tinctly. One was the little vivid, green-robed cherub, 
with snowy pinions fluttering round its head, that had 
brought him life and light when he was sinking down 
in the dark to death. He was careful to speak of it 
no more, however, lest he should be thought crazy ; 
and he scarcely dared think of it any more, lest he 
might be crazy. 

Yernon had, and possibly has still, the curious and 
dangerous power, more often found probably in artists 
than in men of any other class, of calling up optical 
illusions in a darkened room, at pleasure. While at 
'college, I often knew him, for instance, when at a loss 
for the expression of some face or figure in a design, 
withdraw for a short time, as he used to say, into his 
“camera obscura,” and come back to sketch features 
or gestures singularly characteristic and lifelike. He 
made no secret of the power then ; but it led afterward 
to his being haunted and harassed by some of those 
materialistic people self-styled spiritualists, and he be- 
came impenetrably reserved upon the subject. Now 
he feared that this power had broken bounds and im- 
posed upon its master with a lying vision, and that 
what it had done once to his relief it might do again to 
his harm. 

The other thing that he remembered was Rosa- 
mond’s conversation with her little sister. About the 
reality of this, at least, he was certain there could be 
no mistake. The report of his eyes might be too good 
to be true ; the report of his ears was too bad not to 
be true. He was certain that the shock of it had com- 
pletely roused him, if only for some little time, out of 
his delirium. Between illusions and illusions, it had 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


41 


been followed by an interval, whether longer or shorter, 
in which he lay brooding over it, fully conscious of 
where and how he was, and able, though not over- 
willing, to answer his physician’s questions cohe- 
rently, to perceive that the good man looked grave, 
and to be glad of it. He would have snatched at the 
coffin and the shroud for the slenderest chance of 
bringing upon Rosamond Wentworth the doom of 
Barbara Allen. 

As if this reality were not enough, his imagination 
often tormented him, as he lay helpless, with the idea 
of his having played eavesdropper when perhaps he 
had his senses, and sense of honor, enough left to try 
to stop his ears, and when perhaps he could have 
stopped them if he had tried ; and thus by the hour he 
had to contend, and often to contend in vain, with 
Satan, the accuser, who only went away to return 
again the next time he was over-tired or over-long 
without his gruel. 

Finally, the doctor had expressed the opinion to 
Mr. Wentworth — unwarily in John’s' hearing — that, 
as soon as the patient was strong enough, he ought to 
go to work for six months upon a farm ; and with this 
opinion John had encouragingly entertained him the 
first time that, after Miss Manna’s departure, he offi- 
ciated as valet- de-chamhre. How could a man who 
could not endure his life, even when uncomplicated 
with ploughs, hoes, rakes, and rustics, hope to endure it 
when it should become complicated with ploughs, hoes, 
rakes, and rustics? Thus his perverse condition de- 
nied him any comfort in his thoughts, and exaggerated 
every discomfort, small and great ; and to be wroth 

4 * 


42 


A ONES WEN TWO R TIL 


with one he loved did work like madness in his 
brain. 

Meanwhile it seemed, and it was, little Agnes’s 
custom to pass much of her time, out of school-hours, 
in one particular alcove of the library, either alone, or 
with nurse at her side indulging in knitting, sewing, 
or reading Mrs. Chapone’s Letters, or “ Law’s Serious 
Call.” Nurse was in pretty constant attendance at 
present, when the gentlemen of the house were out, in 
order, ostensibly, to wait upon Vernon. But she had 
been, from the period when her nurseling began to 
run alone, much ‘troubled with a “bone in her foot;” 
and, not finding Mr. Vernon’s manners winning in his 
present state of mind, she was even less locomotive 
than usual. Accordingly, it often happened that the 
pitiful, prompt little girl was, when he called, the first 
at his side to ring for John for him, to get him a book, 
or to shut a window. As usual with slight acquaint- 
ances, she was silent and reserved with him. One 
afternoon, notwithstanding, when he was conscious of 
having been especially exacting, he exerted himself to 
make a little conversation with her. 

“ Miss Agnes, I am afraid I give you no peace. 
The drones ought not to interrupt the bees, ought 
they?” 

“ Sick bees are different from drones.” 

“ What was the little queen-bee busy about, so long 
and so still, behind there in her hive, without a single 
buzz?” 

“ First I learned my geography; and then ” 

“ I should not ask, if you would rather not tell.” 

The odd child considered, and then said, deliber- 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


43 


ately, as if rather to herself than to him, “ I do not 
believe it can be a good plan, or dignified, to do any- 
thing we are ashamed of, or be ashamed of anything 
we do. Then, Mr. Yernon, I tried to draw an angel, to 
hang in my room, out of Mr. Allston’s book, 1 was not 
ashamed of trying to do it, — only of not doing it well.’’ 

“ That was because you had not tried often enough 
before.” 

“Was that it ?” 

“ Chiefly, I rather think. Mr. Allston probably had 
to try a good many times himself before he could ‘ do ’ 
those angels. If I can get well, and become a painter, 
I expect to have to ‘ try’ almost every day of my life, 
and all day long.” 

“ I thought you were a genius I” exclaimed Agnes. 
“My brother said so.” 

Vernon’s sweet and brilliant smile flashed over his 
face for the first time since his fever, as he asked, en- 
couragingly, “And what is that. Miss Agnes?” 

“Able to do things without trying.” 

“ But to do them much better with trying. Which 
would make the best workman, — a person with one 
hand, or with two?” 

“ With two.” 

“ Very well : if genius is an artist’s right hand, labor 
is his left.” 

Her little face looked pleased and interested ; but, 
though she stood civilly waiting for more, if he had 
more to say, her eyes wandered back to her alcove. 

“ If you would like to lend me a pencil and paper, I 
will try now to draw you an angel ; and you shall see 
how 1 do it.” 


44 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“ Oh, thank you. How kind I” 

Vernon held a fan over his eyes a few moments. 
Then he raised himself toward a sitting posture, took 
Agnes’s pencil, laid her paper on a book, and threw a 
few lines upon it with a practised though trembling 
hand. Looking on, the wondering child saw form 
itself among them, she knew not how, the outline of a 
knight in armor, stiff and stark, lying on a tomb, in a 
dark crypt such as she had been shown in her favorite 
“ cathedral books,” in the Boston AthenaBum. Above 
him presently appeared the angel, hovering with a 
torch. 

“ Oh, how lovely ! That’s like Fra Angelico.” 

Vernon sank back exhausted, but again smiling, as 
he handed her the paper. “ Why, do you know about 
Fra Angelico, Miss Agnes? — what about him?” 

“I have one of his painted angels; — Walter bought 
it for me, my last birthday, at Williams and Everett’s; 
— and so I found out all about him that I could. He 
was the most beautiful kind of a saint. He served God 
with his pictures. He painted his prayers.” 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


45 


CHAPTER YIIL 

Things under a good Providence often do not turn 
out quite as they might be expected to do under the 
management of the devil. That is a truth which it 
would be a great relief to a great many young people 
to know ; and therefore I state it for their benefit, if 
haply they will accept it upon my statement; but, 
after all, I fear that it will take a good deal of expe- 
rience to teach it to them thoroughly, 

Yernon, before long, had a very good lesson to teach 
it to him. While he lay, as I have described him, 
repining, and reflecting on ploughs, hoes, rakes, and 
rustics, on his sofa in Beacon Street, Agnes Went- 
worth one day, returning from school, met Miss Arden 
making calls in Mount Yernon Street. 

“How d’ye do, little dear? How is Walter’s sick 
friend ?” asked the elder lady. 

“Cousin Clara,” (Miss Clara was adoptedly the 
cousin of a pretty large circle of nice children,) “they 
say he is doing as well as can be expected ; but he is 
an altered being. He used to be so pleasant and 
funny ; and now he scarcely speaks, when he can help 
it, and lies on the sofa from morning till night, looking 
utterly miserable ; and the doctor says, before he may 
be an artist or do anything he likes, he must work on 
a farm or do something horrid, for six months at least.” 

“And is that what makes him miserable?” 

“I believe so.” 


46 


AGNUS WENTWORTH. 


“And he wishes to be an artist, then 

“ Oh, dreadfully I Isn’t it hard ?” 

Miss Clara gave her little friend a kiss and told her 
she was sorry ; and in this deed and speech Agnes sup- 
posed she had received all the comfort of which the 
case admitted. In the course of a week, however, she 
received a pretty little note, all to herself, in Miss 
Arden’s handwriting, saying that her friend Mr. Dud- 
ley was going to Washington in a few days, and 
thought, if Mr. Yernon would like a consulship in Italy, 
that it might be obtained, provided the case proved a 
suitable one for recommendation to the government. 

Agnes went dancing with the note to Walter. He 
said that she herself ought to have the pleasure of 
reading it to Yernon. 

It seemed to give him new life. He sat upright 
without a pillow, upon his sofa, and gave rapid and 
clear directions for finding, at his room in Hoi worthy, 
the portfolio of his best designs, which were to be sent 
to Mr. Dudley and shown by him, if he should desire, 
to any artist whose opinion of them he should desire. 

The opinion proved favorable; and Mr. Dudley’s ne- 
gotiation successful. A consulship was granted Yer- 
non in an Italian city, where the duties were not burden- 
some, and the fees were sufficient to keep a single man 
from starving, and where, as was expected, he would 
have opportunities of studying the works of the old 
masters for his benefit, and copying them for his profit. 

Yernon’s father was a physician of large practice 
but also a large family. It was his custom to give his 
sons a liberal education, and then let them shift for 
themselves as they chose, ^'hus the present arrange- 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


ment suited all parties concerned, especially as it re- 
ceived the sanction of Dr. Brodie. Yernon now rallied 
faster and faster, and was even able to return to Cam- 
bridge to receive his degree. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Just before Yernon sailed, he came in to spend a 
farewell evening with the Wentworths ; and Horace 
Single, another classmate and special crony of Wal- 
ter’s, was there. 

After tea, they all sat together in the library. Mr. 
Wentworth, at his writing-table, was looking over his 
newspapers ; Agnes, unnoticed at his elbow, was hem- 
ming a handkerchief for him by the light of his lamp ; 
while the youths smoked and chatted fraternally in the 
bay-window. Yernon’s tongue was making up for lost 
time. 

“ Single, you’ll be double before I come back,” said he. 

“ I ? — Heaven forefend !” 

“ Why should Heaven do anything of the sort, pray ? 
You’re luckier than most of us; you can afford to set 
up a wife.” 

I am afraid she would be too much in love with 
me,” exclaimed Single, with guileless gravity. 

“ Hear till him !” cried Walter. “ I’m forced to bor- 
row a phrase from the eloquent Irish, in order to do 
any justice to his state of mind.” 

“ Single, ye lady-killer !” chimed in Yernon. 

“ Not at all ; I am only un homme incompris.^^ 


48 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“ Explain yourself and welcome, if you can,” said 
Yernon. 

“ Certainly : if you think you do detect some self- 
conceit in the sound of my speech, there was none in 
the substance, I assure you. I let the sweet creatures 
alone at present ; and they generally let me alone, I 
acknowledge. But, now, you would not have me lay 
my all at the feet of a girl who did not care for me at 
all, would you ?” 

“No,” said they, too eager for what was to come 
next to answer more at length. 

“ But here we come then to the difficulty. How am I 
ever to insure the ma media? I have some other ob- 
jects and interests in life besides a partner in it ; and, 
if Mrs. Single had none, one or other of us would 
have to be miserable ; and I don’t incline to either 
alternative. Now, Wentworth, you are not to be ex- 
pected to understand what I am going on to say ; but 
such an ambitious fellow as Yernon ought surely to be 
able to comprehend what it is for any man to want to 
make his mark on the world, and to want it above all 
other things, however in themselves harmless, or even 
desirable. I intend to be a scholar or an author, — per- 
haps both. I do not choose to throw away, at any- 
body’s bidding, the vantage-ground I have gained by 
the last four years of desperate grinding, not to speak 
of what went before. But what becomes of it all or of 
me, if I have got, the very next thing, to let myself 
down to be the companion of a woman?” 

“What’s this he says to me, now ?” cried Walter, one 
of whose most thorough and popular accomplishments 
was his mastery of the Irish accent and idiom. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


49 


“ ‘ Let myself down to be the companion of a woman,’ 
quotha !” echoed Vernon. “ What manner of woman? — 
a fishwoman?” 

“ Well, a young lady, if you like that better, or even 
what it is the fashion to call ‘ a cultivated young lady.’ 
She might be able to play on the piano, and read Emile 
Souvestre, or perhaps even Jean Paul, ‘with a good 
deal of dictionarj^.’ What then? I have something 
else to do than to read Jean Paul with her; and I am 
sure I would a great deal rather she should not play 
on. the piano within a mile of my library. She would 
rise late, and keep me waiting for my coffee, or take it 
hard if I drank it without her, and so spoil my studious 
morning. At noon, she would drag me about at her 
heels to make calls with her, when I ought to be having 
my constitutional ; and, later in the day, no sooner 
would my boots be off than she would request me to 
accompany her to spend the evening with my mother- 
in-law.” 

“And serve you right, too, for taking them off with- 
out leave,” said Walter. 

“ If I kept them on, they would only walk off with 
me to my club, or wherever I supposed you two were 
likely to be found, and leave her in hysterics.” 

“ Your case is pretty well made out,” said Vernon. 
“ Let ‘ Heaven forefend,’ by all means. It is no worse 
than you deserve.” 

“ He reminds me strongly of another fine and sensi- 
ble young creature I heard talking lately,” said Wal- 
ter. “ Her ideal of domestic felicity seemed to be, not 
‘ to be confined to anybody.’ ” 

“ Who ? — who was it ?” cried Single. 

5 


50 


A ONES WEN'i WORTH. 


“Just the thing for him!” said Yernon. “Come, 
Walter, who was it?” 

“What should I tell for ? 1 call neither of the par- 

ties my foe. For my part, I must say I rather like the 
feminine element, provided only it comes in at the 
right time, and not prematurely to interfere with the 
seed-time of wild oats.” 

“Elements are beggarly!” said Yernon, scowling, 
and pulling his mustache. 

‘‘Ettu, BruV said Walter. 

“I thought you were the very Squire of Dames,” 
said Single. 

“ Is that any reason I should relish seeing them re- 
solved into their elements ?” said Yernon. “ Yivisec- 
tion and analysis are not my forte. Besides, a good 
many other elements go to the making up of any fine 
femina besides what people are pleased to call the 
feminine element ! — such sweety limpidness, — eau 
sucree!'^ 

“Better than aqua fortis, though,” put in Walter, 
who was somewhat less ignorant of theoretical chem- 
istry than of any other branch in which, within the last 
four years, he had undergone instruction. 

“Wherefore I will neither,” retorted Yernon. 

“ Evoe !” cried Single. “ ‘ I say ditto to Mr. Burke,’ — 
or rather, and better, Mr. Burke says ditto to me.” 

“ No, he doesn’t, if Burke stands for Yernon. I might, 
if I recognized Walter’s alternative as the only one. 
But there are some things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
dreamt of in my philosophy, besides women who are 
merely good and women who are not good, — heighol” 

“And those things are? ” inquired Single. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


51 


“ Women who have not only innocence and affection, 
but all the other qualities which go to the making up 
of fit companions for the manliest men, — sympathy, 
intellect, spirit, heroism, generosity, — genius, if you 
will, ” 

“Excuse my interrupting you for a moment,” said 
Single, rather stiffly; “ but do you consider yourself to 
be speaking at present of any possible actual female, 
or only of your ideal muse ?” 

“ Perhaps a little of both,” said Yernon, coloring, 
and hiding his embarrassment over a book which he 
drew from his pocket. “ Here is a passage in point 
that has struck me a good deal, I opened to it in a 
book of extracts that I took up on a counter yesterday, 
and, for the sake of it, I bought the volume to keep me 
company on my voyage. Shall I read you a few 
lines ?” 

“ If Walter has no objection,” said Single. 

“ If they fail to confirm your views,” said Walter, 
with his wonted complaisance. 

“ Hear, and judge of that for yourself,” returned 
Yernon. And he read : “ ‘Why should a woman liken 
herself to any historical woman, and think, because 
Sappho, or Sevigne, or De Stael, or the cloistered souls 
who have had genius and cultivation, do not satisfy 
the imagination and the serene Themis, none can, — 
certainly not she? Why not? She has a new and 
unattempted problem to solve, perchance that of the 
happiest nature that ever bloomed. Let the maiden, 
with erect soul, walk serenely on her way, accept the 
hint of each new experience, try, in turn, all the gifts 
God ofters her, that she may learn the power and the 


52 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


charm, that, like a new dawn, radiating out of the deep 
of space, her new-born being is. * * * The silent 
heart encourages her: 0 friend, never strike sail to a 
fear. Come into port greatly, or sail with God the 
seas I’ There,’^ continued Vernon, as, having pocketed 
his confusion, he did likewise with his book, “that is 
what generous manhood should have to say to gener- 
ous womanhood. But the world at large deals with 
her daughters as biologists do with their subjects ; she 
says to them, ‘You cannot — you cannot — you can- 
noV — be or do anything; and, therefore, — they can- 
not.” 

“Agnes,” said Mr. Wentworth, looking up from his 
papers, “if you have done your sewing, you had better 
go to bed.” 

Agnes went, with regret but yet with a new idea 
stirring in her little brain that made her little heart 
beat higher than usual. There had been much in the 
conversation between her brother and his friends that 
was unintelligible to her. She could scarcely have 
repeated a single clause of it, word for word. But she 
had gathered the general drift of it, and especially Ver- 
non’s faith in the possibilities of womanhood. She 
believed him the greatest man of the three ; and his 
opinion opened before her, though in all the vagueness 
of childhood, plans and distant prospects where all had 
been a blank. 

Even if her bright little morning dream of a home 
with him and Rosamond must never come true, — if he 
must take all his promise and powers away out of sight 
and hearing, and all his endeavors and achievements 
must become nothing to them, — if she must still live 


A GNFS WENT WOR TH. 


53 


on, apart from her sister, as dreary and weary a life as 
before, — still, perhaps, in that silent, lonely life of hers 
she could climb up to reach some beautiful and good 
thing for herself, and for others. It was worth trying 
for ; when she was older, she would try. 

While she was thinking such thoughts, or sinking 
into dreams tinged with them, the young men were 
taking leave of one another below. But, as they did 
not part to meet no more, either with one another or 
with us, it may be worth our while to look for a mo- 
ment at their circumstances, and into their crystallizing 
characters before they weather over with the opacity 
of manhood. 

Of the three, Yernon was certainly the most brilliant. 
By birth a South Carolinian, he was by blood at least 
half a New Englander. His father, born in Boston 
and educated there and at Cambridge, went, while still 
very young, to Charleston, where he soon married a 
Southern lady and settled himself for life. Yernon 
had all the polish and usually somewhat languid 
grace of manner, that intercourse, from the cradle up, 
with the best of Southern society could give him In 
the inner man, a little more languor and repose than he 
had might have been good for him. He was impetu- 
ous, erratic, intense in likes and dislikes, proud, excit- 
able, and irritable, and generally unbalanced, except by 
a certain fastidious refinement of nature, and by his 
peculiar respect and affection for his parents. Through 
them, but through them only, religious principle had 
some hold upon his life; though it was only negative, 
not positive, — as a curb, aot a spur. He would not 
break through the moral law without their knowledge, 
5 * 


54 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


lest he should obtain their confidence and love upon 
false pretences, nor with their knowledge, lest he should 
break their hearts. For Dr. and Mrs. Vernon, I have 
always understood, were both of them very religious 
in their way, — the former the most eminently so in 
deeds, and the latter the most punctiliously so in 
creeds. But as the former was a Deist of the Parkerite 
persuasion, and the latter a supremely High-Church- 
woman, they hit upon the compromise of making 
Episcopalians of their daughters and leaving their sons 
to follow their own doctrinal devices and desires, with 
no very definite doctrinal instruction. And when 
Ernest found himself, as he did pretty early, adrift in 
New England the very vortex of religious speculation 
and innovation, he found himself all at sea, and, for 
want of knowing what to believe, came very near not 
believing at all. 

Single, a Philadelphian, an orphan and an only child, 
was — I beg his pardon for not mentioning it before — 
the first scholar in his class. He had some natural 
ability, and still more emulation and cultivation. He 
was somewhat “exclusive,” sometimes a little cross, 
and sometimes not a little selfish, and appeared like a 
person of a rather cold nature except on the side where 
his ambition lay; but perhaps it would be more just, 
as well as more generous, to sum up by saying of him 
that he was a man reared by men, with a heart never 
yet well warmed nor expanded. At any rate, he 
meant no harm to anybody in the world; and his 
hand already knew the way to his full pocket, as more 
than one needy fellow-student could testify. 

Wentworth — or Walter, as almost all his class called 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


55 


him, — was the most popular man in college. He had 
the sunniest possible hair and eyes and smile and tem- 
per, and an infinite sweetness of manner; and if he 
never undertook to improve himself much, most of his 
young friends overlooked the fact in consideration of 
his never undertaking to improve them. Further, the 
chief distinction I can find for him in our trio is, that 
he was the only one of them who was at all dissipated ; 
and though he was very little so for a very idle and 
thoughtless youth, of ready social sympathies and a 
large allowance, I happen to know that he thought it 
altogether too much so himself when he came to look 
back upon it a few years later, — poor, poor lad I 

So they parted with the prophetic strains of their 
Class-day music — now glad, now sad, and now trium- 
phant — ringing in their ears, to weave into the Warp 
of their fates the woof of their lives, out of the thread 
that their unconscious youth had spun for them. Wal- 
ter went into his father’s office, to yawn, and try not to 
nod, over Blackstone under his father’s eye. Single 
bought a villa on the North River, and shut himself 
up there, for the most part, with the classics, solacing 
himself with daily constitutionals by means of his 
horses, shell-boats, or skates, and with occasional runs 
for a few days down to New York, where he gen- 
erally saw, and sometimes danced with, Rosamond 
Wentworth. Yernon, night after night, paced the 
deck of his frigate, animated still by those strong 
hopes of youth which cannot be soon uprooted, but 
only broken off to spring again. Sometimes he hummed 
to himself, 

“Ambition, I said, shall soon cure me of love;” 


56 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


and sometimes he promised himself that through the 
success of his ambition his love should still be won. 
And sometimes yet, though more and more rarely now, 
he wondered about that little, quaint, green-robed, pre- 
Raphaelite angel, until, among the painted angels of 
Italy, he came pretty near forgetting it altogether. 


CHAPTER X. 

In the mean time. Nurse Tibbets very often won- 
dered likewise, if not precisely about the angel, about 
its garb, and wondered equally in vain. From the 
day and night of their first appearance, the verdant 
robe and snowy wing had flown away, — whither, 
Agnes either could not or would not tell her. Inquiries 
and expostulations on the subject were met only with 
silence, or, if pushed further, with threatenings of an 
April shower of Agnes’s piteous tears ; and these 
always produced a ramollissement of Mrs. Tibbets’s 
heart, which was not so. hard as her face. She was 
henceforth obliged to content herself with a relapse on 
her nurseling’s part into her previous primitive white 
Sunday frocks and matter-of-fact bonnets ; and Agnes 
kept up her previous reputation of rather a plain 
girl. 

She was thought, and truly thought in spite of her, 
an odd girl, too, and continued to be a solitary and 
often a very sad girl. She bad, indeed, none of that 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


51 


eccentricity for eccentricity's sake which betokens a 
vain and shallow character ; but her nature really was 
a somewhat peculiar one; and, through living too much 
by herself or with persons older than herself, she had 
lost the rhythm of common youthful developement. 
How often did she look at, and listen to, her little con- 
temporaries and wish herself like them, while yet she 
was at once too simple and too upright to try to seem 
different from what she was I She was too old for 
them in some things, and in others too young. Not 
finding much in common between themselves and her, 
they did not much affect her. Therefore she fancied 
that there must be something — what, she could not 
tell, and therefore could not help — something posi- 
tively disagreeable about her, doomed forever to hin- 
der such persons as she liked from liking her. This 
idea not seldom cost her unspoken and unspeakable 
pangs, and drove her to shut herself up more and more 
within herself. Therefore they thought her cold and 
distant; wherefore she was less than ever popular. 

With a view to making her more like other girls, 
she was kept constantly at school ; but as a scholar 
she did not shine. Her general intelligence and par- 
ticular obtuseness were a continual astonishment and 
vexation to her teachers. She had little relish for 
most of the things which they tried to teach her, little 
comprehension for what she did not relish, and no 
memory for what she did not understand. In vain did 
they patiently attempt most minute explanations ; the 
more minute these were, the more time had her imagi- 
nation to wander. She discovered no power of atten- 
tion. Day after day, she returned home downcast and 


58 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


self-reproacliful, hopelessly wondering why, when she 
“did not feel stupid in the least,” she should be so in- 
ferior to all her companions. 

Then, when she had made such preparation as she 
knew how for the similar coming trials of the next 
day, she usually tried to draw. She tried to copy, and 
failed. Then she would endeavor to console herself with 
what Yernon had said to her, taking it with childish 
literalness : it was because she had “ not tried times 
enough yet.” After she should have tried times enough 
in vain, there would come a time when she should try 
and not in vain. So there did. She copied at last 
with certainty, truth, spirit, and almost ease. Next 
she tried to design, and failed; but then Agnes was 
sixteen years old. 


CHAPTER XL 

About this time, Walter tapped at Agnes’s chambei' 
door one day when he came home to dinner. 

“ Come in,” said she, looking vacantly up at him 
from her drawing-board. 

“Wake up! 1 have some news.” 

“Good news?” asked she, smiling and endeavoring 
to obey. 

“Capital for me; for you, no worse than indifferent, 
— rather good, too, I should think, on the whole. Yer- 
non is coming home.” 

“Mr. Ernest Yernon! Is he, really? How glad I 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


59 


am! Now I hope we shall have a chance to see all his 
pictures. But do you mean he is coming here — to 
Boston V' 

“Yes; he writes me word he has taken his passage. 
He wants to see me, and the old room in Holworthy ; 
and then he will take New York in his way and pay 
his respects to Horace the Magnificent. Between the 
two, I dare say what he does not, — that he hopes for a 
glimpse of Rosamond. At any rate, he declares openly 
that ‘ Italian women are not to be compared to Amer- 
ican,’ which to my legal ear sounds significant. How 
I do wish she and he, — the very pleasantest pair of 
people I ever saw, — could afford to make a match!” 

“ Do you ? I used to wish it too, I remember. I 
wonder if I shall wish it now. Perhaps I was too 
young then to judge ; but, to be sure, you knew him very 
well. For one thing, at least, I should be sure to like 
it: if he were my brother-in-law, I should not be 
ashamed to ask him to give me a few ideas about com- 
position.” 

“ And I should not be ashamed to ask him not to. 
You have too many ideas about composition already 
for your good, missy.” 

“Why Walter!” 

“ In proportion to your ideas on other subjects.” 

“I can’t guess what you mean,” said Agnes, with 
perfect sincerity ; for, though Mr. Wentworth some- 
times had taken her scholarly deficiencies to heart, 
Walter never had. 

“ Look in the glass,” said he. 

“ Why, do you mean that I do not look tidy ?” cried 
she, starting up in dismay. 


60 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“Not quite so bad as that! ‘Tidy’? — yes, to that 
degree that a Quaker would quake at you!” 

“ Well, what then ? — I don’t see.” 

“You do not look so pretty as you ought, missy, 
‘ not to put too fine a point upon it.’ ” 

“ 0 Walter!” cried she, with tears in her eyes and 
coloring piteously, “ can I help that ?” 

“Certainly. My dear,” he added tenderly, “you do 
not think I would tell you of it if you could not help it ?” 

“ But how ?” 

“Oh, I don’t know, — as the other girls do, I sup- 
pose, — as people do anything else they set their hearts 
upon : — think about it; take pains about it.” 

“ But would not that be wrong ?” said our little 
novice, who was accustomed to hear the pomps and 
vanities most fluently inveighed against, of a Sunday, 
by a highly-got-up clergyman to a most dressy con- 
gregation. 

“Oh, as to that, if you get upon high moral ground, 
I am off. I should call it myself rather a rendering 
to Caesar of the things that are Caesar’s ; but I am afraid 
my wisdom may be somewhat of this world. — There’s 
something I almost forgot, to comfort you though, 
little angel, if I did plague you more than I meant,” 
added he, turning back from the door to give her a 
note. 

“ From Rosamond ? Oh, thank you! — 0 Watty, she 
is coming next week !” 

“ And so is Vernon. Hurrah !” 

“ You naughty boy ! But won’t it be romantic?” 

“ I only wish it might; but I am aft’aid romance is 
one of the only two or three good things left out of your 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


61 


elder’s goodly composition. Yernon wrote to me to 
engage a room for him at the Tremont; but I’ll run 
down in the pilot-boat and take possession of him and 
his baggage and bring him here bodily; and we’ll all 
be jolly together.” 

“ And I’ll set Tibby and the chambermaid about 
Rosamond’s chamber this very afternoon. Oh, how 
gay!” 

Accordingly, the dull, still, shady, shut-up apartments 
were opened, aired, sunned, swept, and garnished. 
Agnes, for the first time in her life, had a fit of house- 
keeping, and ran up stairs and down stairs, in all her 
waking hours that were not school-hours, until she was 
paler and thinner than ever, and was solemnly warned 
by Walter that there would not be enough left of her 
to be found when she was wanted to receive their 
guests. She ruthlessly untwined the beautiful Eng- 
lish ivy, which for months she had been training around 
the frame of her own mirror, in order to wreathe Rosa- 
mond’s ; and she ordered home from Whipple’s, for 
Yernon, an easel on which she had long had an eye for 
herself. (Agnes had little pocket-money, and deliber- 
ated much before her small purchases.) She set up 
the easel in a large empty attic commanding a distant 
view of the harbor, and, with much ado, and some 
assistance from the despondent and remonstrant Mrs. 
Tibbets, covered the windows with white cambric 
shades that would roll up either at top or bottom. 

These and other preparations were hardly completed 
when, early one morning, she was roused from sleeping 
off her fatigues by the welcome sound of a rumble and 
pull-up at the hall-door, and sundry bumpings of sun- 
6 


62 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


dry trunks first on the bricks and then on the stairs ; 
and she had no sooner sprung up and laved her face 
than Rosamond, in her travelling-dress, came in and 
kissed it. From which auspicious morn the house 
seemed bright and filled with a presence of lovely and 
lively young-ladyhood. Almost before Agnes had time 
to think of him again, similar rumbling and bumpings 
announced the next comer; and so did Walter, ex- 
claiming, as he burst into the library and tossed up 
his cap as he might have done five years before, “ Here 
he is ! Allow me to present to you my captive, Apel- 
les, if not of Cos-town, of Boston.” 

“ Of Charleston, I should say, only that I recognize 
no Apelles at all, Wat. — Miss Wentworth, is it you 

He could not go on. He dropped her hand and 
turned away. 

“My sister Agnes,” suggested Walter, consider- 
ately. 

Vernon recovered himself, and came courteously and 
cordially up to her: “You would need an introduction 
to me, Miss Agnes, I dare say ; but I have never for- 
gotten, I assure you, who was so good to me when I 
was ill and ill-natured. I only hope you do not re- 
member.” 

“ Not the ill-nature, certainly,” said Agnes. “ The 
illness I do ; and I think I should have known you 
anywhere. Are you quite strong again ?” 

“ Thank you, yes — and no, — sometimes — sometimes 
not. There is a good deal of wear and tear about the 
life of an artist.” 

Agnes looked at him with a mingling of surprise 
and compassion. He was as handsome as — yes, in 


A ONES WENTWORTH. 


63 


some respects handsomer than — ever ; but indeed he 
looked worn and torn. 

“ The life is worth the price, though,’^ he added 
quickly, drawing up his rather small and very finely 
shaped head, with a sudden change of expression and 
a glance at Rosamond, — a proud — almost a defiant — 
glance. 

“ We can easily believe that,’^ said Rosamond, — “to 
an artist at least such as we have been hearing of, from 
time to time, ever since you went to Italy. Why would 
you never allow your friends the pleasure of seeing a 
single one of your pictures on this side of the water 

He was still more gratified than she meant he should 
be. The haggard, anxious expression left his features 
beaming with sweetness and animation as he answered, 
“I did not dare allow my friends on this side of the 
water to judge of me by any one. I could not be quite 
sure which was the best, not to say, as my little negro 
boy used to, ‘the leastest bad.’ As for sparing them 
all, I never could bring myself to it ; though it might 
have been the best thing for my training. They made 
a home for me, — the only home I had.” His voice sank 
at the last words, as if they forced themselves from 
him ; and, as they did so, he looked again away from 
Rosamond to Agnes. 

“ Shall we see them now ?” asked she eagerly. 

“You are very kind. I do not know. They are 
here — that is, as near here as the custom-house; but 
I do not see how we could very well unpack them in 
your house, Walter. It would be like bringing you in 
that gift of an elephant.” 

“Come up stairs, — no, not now, — what am I think- 


64 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


ing about? — but after you have lunched we will go. 
This housekeeper in the bud has been getting you up 
something of a studio, I believe. We will have the 
cases set there if you like, and unpack them at your 
leisure. Edward Arden will put anything you choose 
into the Athenaeum, and thank you for it ; and the rest 
shall grace our walls as long as they may, — the longer 
the better for us.” 

This time Yernon^s look of gratitude was for Agnes; 
and very grateful to her it was in more senses than 
one. 

By the time the luncheon was eaten, mutual in- 
quiries and jokes made, answered, and laughed at, and 
the attic visited and cordially approved and accepted, 
the little circle seemed so happy, domestic, and natural, 
that Agnes began again to wish her old wish. She 
carried it to Walter’s chamber, when the said circle 
had dispersed before dinner, and knocked with it at 
his door. 

“ Come in,” said he, as well as he could, with his 
mouth stopped with lather. 

“ O Walter, you are not whitewashing your house 
of clay already, are you ? I wanted to talk with you. 
Aren’t you Yankee enough to talk through your nose 
just for once?” 

“Not very fluently,” he mumbled, laughing, not- 
withstanding, through that organ with sufficient suc- 
cess to cause commotion among the suds. 

“ But wasn’t it romantic?” 

“Humph I” (affirmative.) 

“ But did you think he would care so much ?” 

“ Humph I” (neutral.) 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


65 


“.But do you believe she will ever care for him ?” 

‘Humph!” (negative.) 

“ Oh, you horrid Walter! But wouldn’t it be nice 
if she did?” 

He made a desperate charge at her with razor in 
one hand and soap-brush in the other. She beat a 
hasty retreat, shaking with laughter, while forced to 
stifle her shriek lest it should reach the visitor’s ear. 
Walter was the only bona fide playmate Agnes ever 
had ; and they never knew when to leave off playing 
with one another. 

At dinner, Mr. Wentworth appeared ; and, as he 
was pleased with his guest, so his guest was evidently 
pleased with him. He was a man of fine social — though, 
properly speaking, no domestic — powers. He needed 
guests in order to shine at home ; but when he had 
them, he could shine at home ; and when he had them 
and liked them, then he did shine at home. He now, 
with his wit and anecdote and well-preserved long 
memory of men, books, and affairs, came in to cap the 
climax of the little set of clever and agreeable grown 
people, all stimulated by each other’s ready apprecia- 
tion and enjoyment to do their best for one another. 
Meantime, Agnes, not yet out, and theoretically still 
“ a little girl,” was in the not unenviable position of a 
modest listener of whom almost nothing is expected, 
while by whom almost all may be enjoyed. Even the 
dulness of her school-room in the morning henceforth 
made its contrast with the dining-room and library in 
the evening all the more piquant. For Mr. Went- 
worth joined his son in urging Yernon to be in no 
haste to leave them; and Yernon’s parents in their 
6 * 


66 


AGNES WENTWORTH 


letters urged aud even commanded him to be in no 
haste to join them. The yellow fever had broken out 
at the South ; and, though the rest of his family were 
thought safe enough, they feared lest he through 
long absence had become, if there only were such a 
word, disacclimated . 

So he stayed; and there was driving, riding, boat- 
ing, music, and talking aud laughing ad infinitum 
among the young ladies and gentlemen, according to 
the pleasant wont of young ladies and gentlemen when 
they are blest with one another’s company. Rosamond 
and Walter were, in Agnes’s opinion, a pattern pair of 
elders, and always, when it could be done, arranged 
their plans so as to include her. It would do her 
more good than harm — so they privately agreed — to 
take a little of the spare good sense out of her. 


CHAPTER XII. 

By degrees a mutually agreeable, though, it must 
be owned, an excessively sensible, friendship sprang up 
between Agnes and Yernon. From her relation to 
bis lady-love, she had, of course, some reflected in- 
terest for him; and perhaps it was even a relief to 
him sometimes to turn from one who had all the 
world to give him or to withhold, to one of whom he 
sought little, but who could and did give that little 
frankly and gladly. Rosamond was a remarkably 
unconstrained and spontaneous person in general ; but 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


6t 

toward him she was od her guard, and he felt it. 
Agnes could be and ^was perfectly at her ease with 
him, — simply grave or simply merry as the case 
might be, — and as unconscious and artless as with 
her brother and sister. He was inclined to regard her 
unworldliness and earnestness as merely a phase of 
youth, which she was pretty sure to outgrow; but, 
rating them only at that, he found them entertaining 
and refreshing for the time. He did not admire her 
much; but he did like her, — even loved her a little, 
after a fashion, as the kind-hearted guileless younger 
sister that he wished she might one day be to him ; 
and he was very good to her, and discussed a variety 
of deep questions with her at her pleasure so gravely 
that one afternoon, when Walter in his palm-leaf 
dressing-gown brought her and a cigar up to the 
studio, he announced himself as “the Queen of Sheba, 
come to listen to the wisdom of a pair of Solomons.” 

“ No; Mr. Vernon cannot talk and paint at once, — 
can you?” 

“How did you find that out. Miss Pythia? Did I 
ever say so? You never talked to me when I was 
painting, did you ?” said Vernon, looking up with a 
smile from the grim pudding he was making with his 
palette-knife. 

“ No; I only saw it. Do you really want to know 
how ? When you are painting fast, as if you liked it, 
your face gets a far-away, listening look, as if the 
hearing had gone into it out of your ears, and your 
mind had travelled a great way off. When people are 
cruel and will speak to you, at first you do not hear ; 
and when you do, and your senses come back and you 


08 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


answer, then you stop painting; and it is such a 
pity I” 

“ Well, I suppose that is wont to be the way with 
all artists, in whatever kind, whenever they are at 
work in earnest. But, now, what is the reason?” 

Ah, it is I who should ask you that.” 

“But I could not tell you; and I should be much 
obliged to you if you could tell me. If my mind is 
not here, where is it?” 

“ Why, I supposed — but are not we interrupting 
you now ?” 

“ On the contrary. What I am about now is almost 
purely mechanical, — merely rubbing in this dark oval 
border, you see, to paint vine-leaves into.” 

“ I supposed, then, that any artist, who brought any 
really new creation — picture, statue, or poem — into 
this world, had to go into the other world for it. 
There can be only one real Creator — can there ?— in 
the whole universe.” 

“ I do not know,” said Vernon, stopping short in his 
work. “It is such a novel question! — at least to me. 
You think, then, that this design which I am slowly 
groping after, step by step,” he continued, pointing to 
a charcoal sketch which hung on the white wall before 
them, “is already completed and waiting for me in the 
mind of God?” 

“ Yes. I should think so. Do not you ?” 

“ I wish I did. I wish I could,” said he, talking as 
if to himself, in a low, awe-struck tone. “ It would 
make Him seem so near I It would make Him seem 
so fatherly 1 It reminds me of a habit my mother had 
when I was a child. When I rode home at noon from 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


69 


school, hot and faint, and she was out, I used to go 
and look in a certain small shady balcony which be- 
longed to my own chamber ; and there I was sure to 
find some cool, flowery, fresh treat of fruit that her in- 
visible hands had set there for me, and for me alone. — 
But, Miss Agnes, I fear that your theory, like many 
another of which one is sorry to think so, will not 
bear examination. The beautiful and evil new crea- 
tions, — where do they come from ?” 

“ Are there such things 

“You are fortunate if, even at your age, you have 
not found that out.” 

“ Then I should think that their beauty came from 
the mind of God, and their wickedness through the 
minds of ungrateful men. The Apollo Belvedere would 
look distorted and defaced if he were exhibited through 
a cracked and muddy window ; but it would be the 
showman’s fault, — would it not ? — instead of the sculp- 
tor’s. The little feast in your balcony would have 
been poisonous if you had brought nightshade-berries 
home with you, to mix with Mrs Yernon’s gi’apes and 
currants ; but would she have been to blame ?” 

“ I see the point you would make. I believe you 
may be right, — to a considerable extent. I must think 
more about it. But why should such glorious second- 
sights be permitted to bad men ?” 

“ Why ? O Mr. Yernon, why have we all so much 
more than we deserve ? Why do kind mothers put 
treats in the way of naughty little boys ?” 

He smiled his sweet, peculiar, brilliant smile, and 
let that part of the matter drop. “ You do not believe 
in eSvSentially beautiful wickedness then, Miss Agnes ?” 


70 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


“-Only as I do in essentially beautiful ugliness,’^ re- 
turned she, laughing. “Wickedness is spiritual ugli- 
ness, is it not 

“There speaks the irrepressible Yankee mind,” said 
Walter, whom they had almost forgotten, looking up 
out of a copy of “ Pendennis” in which he had taken 
refuge from too much metaphysics. “ My sisters’ 
tongues are tolerably classic ; but did you ever know 
an unreclaimed Yankee yet who did not say ‘ugly’ 
when he meant ill-behaved?” 

“Yery true,” said Yernon to Walter; and W’' alter 
went back into his book; and Yernon turned again 
rather eagerly to Agnes. “ What were you going to 
say ?” 

“I was going to say, I believe, that I saw of course 
there might be, for instance, what my old nurse would 
call a ‘pretty complected’ reptile, or a livid plague- 
struck form perfect in proportion, or faultless features 
with an idiot’s mind or a criminal’s soul looking through 
them. Beauty and ugliness may be mingled.” 

“ And so, only, beauty and wickedness ?” 

“ I think only so.” 

“ What do you say to that ?” asked Yernon, leaving 
his easel and bringing a sketch from a portfolio. 

“ Superb I” cried Walter. “ Who was it ? — a model ?” 

“No; a woman of rank. Is it not beautiful. Miss 
Agnes ?” 

“ Most beautiful — and yet ” 

“ Most wicked ?” 

“Yes, — partly beautiful and partly wicked. 0 
Walter, come to the rescue ! Do not 3^ou hear what 
work your friend is making with the manners of your 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


n 


little sister ? Are you going to let him make me con- 
tradict him any more 

“You can defend yourself, little gipsy,” said Wal- 
ter absently, turning over a leaf and reading on. “ Two 
to one isn’t fair.” 

“ There, Mr. Yernon, you see what an unprotected 
female I am I I appeal to your mercy.” 

“But I do not see how I can possibly have any, 
until you go on with your analysis.” 

“ Can you, if I do ? Will you excuse my pertina- 
city ?” 

“ The pertinacity is on my own side; but, if you will 
forgive it, I do really wish that I might hear. The ex- 
pression in the sketch, I suppose you will say, — and I 
agree, — is not good; but is not even the expression 
beautiful ?” 

“ The expression is very beautiful in some respects : 
it has fire; it has dauntlessness; it has loftiness; it 
has refinement, even ; but it is surely, so far, not bad. 
But in these other respects I think it is not beautiful : 
it is hard ; it is harsh ; I think it is even false.” 

“ In a word, it is Lucrezia Borgia. It would not 
do for you to be a portrait-painter. Miss Agnes.” 

“ But, now, if you — if any man of genius — were to 
borrow these glorious brows and lips and eyes, and all 
that is not wicked, from this face, and paint a patrician 
martyr girl going grandly and gladly to the stake, — 
if he could elevate this selfish recklessness into a look 
of rapt inspired loyalty to God, — if he could make this 
scorn of fellow-creatures seem scorn only of the petty 
show of tools of torment by which her persecutors 
would frighten her from her fidelity, — if he could soften 


72 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


and sweeten this compressed, cruel mouth into pity and 
prayer for them, — if he could open this brazen falsehood 
into a look of deep, transparent, holy truth, — would not 
that picture be even more beautiful than this, Mr Yer- 
non V' 

He bowed acquiescence with a glance of kindly and 
interested thought. He bad learned, in his long for- 
eign loneliness, to think and feel instead of talking, 
and now often spoke least when he thought and felt 
most. 

“ As much more beautiful as this looks than poor 
Lucrezia, I suppose, does now,” continued Agnes, an- 
swering her own question. 

“ Why, how do you suppose she looks now, my 
child ?” cried he. “ Could she look more like a beau- 
tiful fiend ?” 

“ Like an ugly fiend I supposed she looked now. I 
supposed that all beauty and genius and power were 
mixed with wickedness only in this world, like the 
wheat with the tares, and that in the other world they 
were taken from all who had made an unrighteous use 
of them, and divided among the faithful servants, — 
those who had been faithful to the best of their knowl- 
edge ; and then I supposed that all guilt, with all 
idiocy and impotence and ugliness, would roll away 
together into darkness, as the clouds from the sun.” 

Vernon started from the easel, and put Lucrezia back 
into the portfolio as hastily as if a blast of sulphur were 
visibly threatening her rich hues and noble outlines. 
“ Miss Agnes,” said he, as he returned and took up his 
brushes, “of all the inferni I ever had a glimpse of, 
yours is the most horrible !” Well he might say so; 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 




for I believe that, to his peculiar organization, the con- 
templation of physical ugliness was even physical pain. 
He had known what it was to faint in the street for 
want of a dinner when, by portraying an unsightly 
nobleman, he could have stocked his improvident 
bachelor larder for a month. Moreover, there were 
many times when he would almost have been ready to 
sell his soul for glory ; and his invalid years were 
overshadowed more by the fear of losing his powers 
than of losing his life. 

Agnes answered not again. She was afraid that she 
had been talking too much. Yernon silently began his 
vine-leaves. Silently she left the room, and returned 
with a long and beautiful, dark and light branch from 
the old vine twinkling with the rain that was falling 
in the tiny garden. Silently she wreathed with it the 
top of his easel; and then, still silent, she sat aloof and 
watched his work. 

“ Thank you,” said he, at last, turning suddenly to- 
ward her. “I did not thank you, did I, for the vine?” 

‘‘ Oh, yes, — by painting from it.” 

The spell was broken. She saw that Walter had 
gone to sleep ; and, taking up a dry blender, she tickled 
his nose. He awoke, rubbing it and quoting Dr. 
Watts, for the edification of her infant mind, to the 
effect that 

“Satan finds some mischief still 
For idle hands to do.” 


“ With such an uncanny alternative before you. Miss 
Agnes, perhaps you will permit me to suggest some 
‘ works of labor or of skill ’ for your hands to do, that 
T 


74 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


would not be mischievous, unless perhaps to your 
dress ?” 

“For you? — I should be very happy. 

“For yourself. You do not paint; why not ?” 

“ Oh, do you suppose I could ?” 

“ 1 am sure you could, — more or less. In some de- 
gree it is a far more universal power than people 
suppose.” 

“Ah, but it would be such profanation to do it and 
do it badly !” 

“But that very feeling would save you from doing 
it badly. I do not see why you should not do it very 
well, — at least so far as copying goes ; you have your 
life all before you. I have seen that you revel in color. 
Cannot you draw ?” 

“ Get your drawing-books, missy,” said Walter, “ and 
let Mr. Yernon see for himself.” 

“Will you be so kind?” said he, encouragingly and 
persuasively. 

“I should be perfectly delighted,” answered she, 
with unexpected alacrity, “ especially the designs. Oh, 
they always turn out so badly ; and I cannot find out 
what the matter is.” 

“Characteristic!” said Walter, laughing, as the door 
shut behind her. 

“ What is ? — sinking the self-consciousness of the in- 
dividual in the aspiration of the artist? A pity for all 
art, that the characteristic is so uncommon!” said 
Yernon. 

He had scarcely time to say more before Agnes was 
with them again, out of breath with haste and eager- 
ness, bringing five long, thin volumes, which she held 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


Y5 


before him, stamped on the covers with her name and 
the dates of the present and the last four years. 

He opened them with one hand, and peeped into 
them one after another. The first four were filled 
with copies. The last had, interspersed with these, 
original designs somewhat after the fashion of Agnes’s 
conversation at this time, — pretty crude, but original 
and thoroughly in earnest. 

Agnes gazed meanwhile into his face, as if expecting 
her doom. 

He turned from her to the easel, laid down his 
palette and brushes, wiped his hands, then took the 
books from her, sat down, and went on through them 
steadily from the beginning, without saying a word, 
until she thought it was all over with her. 

When at last he looked up, he was surprised by the 
melancholy, utterly hopeless expression of her poor 
little face. It made him say more than he might have 
done otherwise; ‘‘Why, surely, surely there is nothing 
here to discourage you 1 You can draw, — well — ad- 
mirably for a person of your age. And you have not 
only ability, but you have that other rarer thing, — rare 
especially, if you can forgive my saying so, in women, 
— perseverance, without which ability hardly ever mel- 
lows into effective genius. Your power is not pre- 
cocity ; it is a regular trustworthy growth, and there- 
fore full of promise for the future. See how childish 
those first things are ; and then look at these last. If 
you improve for the next twenty years as you have 
done for the last five, I shall be afraid of you, not for 
you. Miss Agnes.” 

She looked as pleased as he, but not yet satisfied. 


76 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


She had encouragement ; she wanted instruction. 
“But the designs — I took the greatest pains with 
them ; why are they not better 

“ Probably because you are not older. Attempt 
them still from time to time ; stretch your wings, and 
they will be all the more likely to grow. What is 
necessary to a perfect design 

“ That all the parts should be in keeping with the 
whole V 

“ That is necessary to a good design, certainly. In 
a perfect design, I should say, each of the parts must 
be essential to the whole. But copying should still be 
your chief business for the present. Above all, you 
have now to study color. There is a poetry of colors, 
as there is a poetry of words. You would feel it at 
any rate, by nature, I dare say ; the sense of it is a 
natural gift; but, in order to be able to make others 
feel it, you must put it in practice and master it early. 
If you please, and Mr. Wentworth has no objection, I 
should like to give you your first lessons myself, when- 
ever Walter has a spare hour to bring you here.’’ 

“ Thank you and thank you and thank you ten thou- 
sand times over I If I can only learn, I would rather 
than be crowned Queen of England. But they think 
at school, I am sure, that there is some dreadful kind 
of stupidity about me,” added she, blushing painfully. 
“ Some things I teach myself ; but nobody else, so far, 
can teach me anything.” 

“All the more glory to me, then, if I can,” answered 
he, looking amused but undaunted ; and so much of 
his confidence communicated itself to her that, after 
her father had given his careless consent, it was joy 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


7t 

more than fear that kept her awake into the small 
hours that night. 

Human motives are double perhaps oftener than 
they are single, and triple perhaps even oftener than 
they are double. If there had been no such thing as 
Rosamond in the world, Yernon would probably still 
have been glad to give pleasure to his kind young 
hostess, and to pay off so easily a part of the large 
debt he owed her family. As there was such a thing 
as Rosamond in the world, however, it is probable 
further that he hoped by making a little mystery of 
her brother’s and sister’s constant visits to the studio 
to induce her to accompany them, in order to see what 
they were about. Moreover, he would have given, if not 
his right hand, his left, for a chance to paint her in the 
character of Euphrosyne. He could not bring himself 
to ask leave wHh a prospect of being refused ; but 
surely Agnes might make the request for herself in 
all sisterly propriety, if once it was adroitly put into 
her head j and, if she undertook the matter, he must 
help her. 




78 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


CHAPTER XI 11. 

Rosamond fell into the snare step by step. Not even 
art could make Agnes untidy ; and her frocks told no 
tales. “ Come and see,” with a certain most roguish 
smile, which she had upon occasion, was the only 
answer she vouchsafed to her sister’s interrogatories as 
to what she could find to do so often in the studio; and 
“ Come and see,” was Walter’s echo. Rosamond Avas 
lonely below when all the other young people were in the 
“Art Attic.” Besides, she did not feel quite sure that 
she was doing well by her young sister in allowing her 
to be there even with Walter. He was “a kind and 
honorable brother;” but he was thoroughly thoughtless, 
and, very likely, less acquainted than herself with the 
little conventionalisms of young-ladyhood. She had a 
perhaps even exaggerated veneration for Agnes’s pecu- 
liar simplicity and unconsciousness; and she could not 
bear to venture upon so much as a hint that might 
disturb them. She tried to dissuade her charge from 
“climbing” what they called “the steep of fame” so 
often, on the ground that it might be an inconvenience 
to Vernon; but Vernon sent Walter for her; and 
Walter took her, with a hasty, “Oh, it’s all right; 
she’s wanted. You’d better come too.” She thought 
of appealing to Mr. Wentworth, but decided that that 
measure would be as probably fruitless as certainly' 
awkward. She was little better acquainted with him 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


T9 


than with the man in the moon, and had little reason 
to suppose him better acquainted than the man in the 
moon with the management of an earthly family. “It 
is really almost enough to make one sigh for a step- 
mother!” she ejaculated, in extremity; for the Misses 
Yan Rooselandt, even if they once in a while did 
things they should not, never did them unchaperoned. 
Notwithstanding, she finally made up her mind that, 
if the Fates were perverse enough to impose upon a 
maiden of twenty-three the unbecoming part of a 
duenna, it was their affair, and not hers. So she 
picked up her croc/ie^-ball, tripped nimbly up the many 
stairs past the green-papered story and the crimson- 
papered and the yellow-papered, listened for and heard 
her brother’s and sister’s voices within the studio-door, 
knocked, and was hailed with acclamation, panting, 
laughing, and blooming, 

Walter was seated on a high stool, with one foot 
perched and one dangling, his meerschaum in his 
mouth, and a gold-spangled, deep-blue velvet smoking- 
cap, that matched his hair and eyes, on his head. 

Agnes was at the easel, palette on thumb, and 
brushes and maulstick in hand. 

Yernon, at last enacting the part of the spider 
in “the prettiest little parlor that ever you did 
spy,” was ushering Rosamond in and setting her a 
chair. 

“ 0 Rosy, only see I I’ve drawn him ” 

“And quartered me,” chimed in Walter, “most un- 
comfortably.” 

“And Mr. Yernon is giving me lessons; and now 
Pm putting on the first coats.” 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


SO • 


“ Humph !” said Walter ; “ I’m glad the rest of my 
coats aren’t quite so oleaginous or so fragrant.” 

'' Why, do you really mean you smell the paints? I 
never do — much. 0 Ros}’^, isn’t it like him ?” 

“Not in complexion, I hope,” protested Walter' 
again, peering round the easel. 

“Sit still, you mauvais sujet!'^ cried the master, 
unscrewing a tube of Vert Veronese and driving him 
back by the exhibition of it as a smelling-bottle; “take 
your pose; and let Miss Wentworth judge of the like- 
ness.” 

“ ‘ Leave me, leave me to re-pose !’ ” rejoined 
Walter, recoiling from the venomous little green vial ; 
and Rosamond made her way up to the easel. 

“ Why, you dear little Agnes, did you really draw 
that? It is as good as if you could have traced it 
from his looking-glass, some day when he was play- 
ing pranks with you at it; is not it, Mr. Yernon?” 

“ It is, without flattery, as good as any first study 
by a novice that I ever saw,” averred Yernon, as wdl 
he might. 

“Ah, but, Mr. Yernon, you know you helped me,” 
said Agnes, coloring with candor and delight. 

“ Of course, here and there ; — in the first few lessons 
cela va sans dire. I am not likely to offer you such 
help long, nor you to accept it. — A little more shadow 
here ; but take care not to encroach on that light. — 
Miss Wentworth, would not you like to have me make 
room for you nearer this window?” 

“Oh, no, thank you; I am doing perfectly well 
here,” said Rosamond, devoting herself to her crochet. 
“ True merit, I always heard, is fond of a corner.” 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


81 


The lesson proceeded. Agnes learned, and Yernon 
taught, in good earnest. He was too wary a spider to 
notice his fly much, openly ; he could not help it if his 
eyes and cheeks grew the brighter and his smile and 
voice the sweeter for her presence. He only wished 
she would have let him draw her chair a little farther 
in front of the window ; for then he could have watched 
the shadow of her profile on the wall. Still, it was 
very much to know that she was there, to hope that 
she would speak, to hear her speak sometimes, and to 
know that she heard him. She was there for once, at 
any rate ; and perhaps she would come again if he en- 
tertained her but let her quite alone. He talked to 
his pupil as if inspired. It was only of his art, in- 
deed ; and for that, Rosamond in her inmost mind did 
not much care. However, there is always a fascina- 
tion about hearing a man of genius improvise on his 
favorite theme, whether it is one’s own or not. 

Park-Street clock struck four. Walter punctually 
sprang, like a refractory Pythia, from his tripod, de- 
claring that he would “ lend his countenance to such 
nonsense no longer.” By that time, however, the 
crocheting Rosamond had made up her mind that she 
must needs oversee the lessons, whenever she could, 
in order to watch over the heart of her little sister ; as 
she had not herself the heart to withhold from her, 
unless stronger cause should appear, so much im- 
provement and innocent enjoyment. 

Under such auspices, the portrait went on rapidly, — 
the portrait of a handsomer Walter in his gayest, 
sweetest mood. In order to this result, Yernon was 
naturally obliged to give his pupil more and more 


82 


AQNES WENTWORTH. 


assistance; in fact, as the work advanced through the 
last processes, he was obliged to do it half himself. 
Agnes was grateful on the one hand, but, on the other, 
a little disappointed; 

“ I shall value it much more than if I had done it 
myself, because it is so much better ; but I can never 
call it mine, — except as its owner, which I am most 
happy to be. You could have painted faster and more 
finely by yourself, Mr. Yernon. I am very sorry to 
be so slow and so stupid.” 

“ So far as I may be allowed to be your judge, you 
are neither, Miss Agnes ; but you have some reason 
to complain of your master. Painting is an art to be 
taught rather through the eyes than the ears. The 
way I ought to have taken with you, and the way I 
shall take the next time, if you please, is, to paint 
your subject before you, and let you follow, step by 
step, by example as well as precept.” 

“Oh, shall we try again? Whom shall I take 
now? You, Rosy; couldn’t I ?” 

“ Miss Wentworth might be rather difficult for you,” 
suggested the diplomatic Yernon. “ Mr. Wentworth 
would be an admirable study.” 

“If papa only would ; but I am afraid he is too 
busy,” said Agnes*; and papa was too busy. 

“ Dear Rosy,” coaxed the little artist, “ if you would 
only let me try you ! There is nobody else, except 
nurse ; and if I made the picture like her, I am afraid 
she would think it was a caricature. And then it 
would be so very nice to have you to hang on one 
side of my mantel-piece, with Watty on the other I 
Should you mind sitting, — in a comfortable little sew- 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


83 


ing-chair, — if Mr. Vernon makes no real objection, — 
just to oblige me 

Rosamond did not think she should. She was 
naturally obliging ; and, being in general little inter- 
ested in painting and at the moment much interested 
in her piano-playing, she had altogether forgotten the 
plan of the double portrait. When she remembered 
it, Agnes had already applied to Vernon, and he had 
made no real objection. 

Well,’^ said Rosamond to herself, “for a seasoned 
belle of five winters, you have been caught napping 
this time, my dear. However, it won’t do to show 
any consciousness now. Mr. Vernon is an honorable 
man; and Aunty Van Rooselandt will be only too 
glad to buy his sketch when it is done ; and, in the 
mean time, I should really like to see how I look to 
him. I have no particular objection to make to my 
looks ; but really I can’t say that they impress me in 
my glass, by any means, as they seem to do him, out 
of it.” 

Accordingly, she put the best face she could upon the 
matter, and her most becoming afternoon dress upon her- 
self, and made her appearance, book in hand, at the 
studio. There were Vernon and Agnes, forewarned 
and forearmed, with their double apparatus of brushes, 
palettes, easels, and first-tinted canvases. She settled 
herself comfortably, and, coolly opening her book, said, 
“I may read, I suppose ?” 

Vernon left Agnes to answer. 

“Dear me, no, darling! You have to look at me, 
and look inspired and inspiring, of course. Just let me 
put these little green grapes and young vine-leaves into 


84 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


your hair. Now you are Euphrosyne. Now, Mr. 
Vernon! — Oh, what a beautiful oval !” 

“Draw it tenderly; if it is too hard, you will lose 
the likeness. Now, be very careful of the nose; it 
must be regular, you see, and very spirited; — but, in 
your drawing, is it not a little heavy? — That is better; 
— that is well. You can scarcely make the arches of 
the brows too perfect. Leave yourself room for the 
eyes ; — they cannot be small, remember ; and you want 
to throw into them mirth, sweetness, dignity, and 
depth, — four traits not very easy to find in combina- 
tion. Now lay out your whole strength upon the 
mouth ; let it smile and speak and persuade and com- 
mand, all at once. Miss Agnes, is that like ?” 

“No, indeed; nor that, — nor that, — nor that, — 
nor that. Rosamond, why will you look so impos- 
sibly?” 

“No matter; difficulties do you good. To make a 
hard thing easy, try a harder,” said Vernon. 

“ I am afraid I could hardly find a harder thing than 
this is to do well.” 

“No, I do not believe you could ; but, if you can do 
justice to this, all other hard things should hencefor- 
ward be easy to you. Try again. See mine.” 

“ Perfectly beautiful. How could you do it so 
quick ?” 

“ It was like something I have had in my mind a 
long time,” said Vernon. 

“ Oh, dear, does he mean it, or doesn’t he?” thought 
Rosamond. “Oh, what a galere I have got myself 
into! I shall be glad of a peep at that picture, though. 
If his painting is really more beautiful than his looking 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


85 


at this momeot, I run a sad risk of being vainer than 
ever.” 

“ Is that better ?” said Agnes. 

“Yery much. Curve the crest of the lip a little 
more, — delicately — like that of a wave before it breaks. 
There, that will do — at least, as well as we can do — 
for the drawing. Now — are you very weary. Miss 
Wentworth ?” 

“ Oh, no,” said Rosamond, who thought the sooner 
she could get through with the whole business the bet- 
ter ; “ and, if you are not, I think it might be best to 
go on as far as possible ; for I don’t know that I shall 
be able to sit many times. But may not I see now 
what you have done ?” 

“If you wish it very decidedly, — certainly,” said 
Yernon. 

“But, unless you wish it very decidedly indeed, we 
would very much rather not have you,” said the 
straightforward Agnes. “Mr. Yernon says that show- 
ing any work of art, while it is in progress, is like show- 
ing a bird’s-nest while it is building ; — ten to one the 
bird or the mood is driven away and never comes back, 
or comes only to do its business very awkwardly.” 

“ We will not run any such risks, then,” answered 
Rosamond, with her usual good humor. She was 
really interested in the success of this one “ work of 
art” of Yernon’s, in the course of, and by means of, 
which she was in a fair way to know more than she 
had ever known before about the sundry excellencies 
of her outlines, hues, and expressions. 

A few sittings finished it; but then it was still to be 
dried, varnished, and framed, before it was to be seen 

8 


86 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


except by Walter, who would not be kept from hover- 
ing over it like a fly, though he did so only on condition 
of his not uttering his opinion in so much as a single 
buzz. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

Very radiant was Vernon the evening that his por- 
trait went off for its frame, and the next morning at 
breakfast. Very murky he looked, however, the next 
noon at luncheon, and could scarcely eat or speak. He 
murmured some slight unintelligible excuse to Agnes 
for giving her no lesson, borrowed the ponderous bronze 
library inkstand, as if for some emergency to which the 
little Sevres one in his chamber was altogether inade- 
quate, and stalked upward with steps as hard and 
heavy as Mr. Wentworth’s own. 

“What is the matter with him?” said Walter, look- 
ing after him. 

“ I do not know,” said Rosamond. 

“What can be?” said Agnes. “ He said he was per- 
fectly well.” 

“ That means, at any rate, that he does not choose 
to be questioned, I suppose,” said Walter. “Not bad 
news from home, I hope. John,” (the servant at that 
moment came in), “ any letters to-day ?” 

“Yes, sir; one for Mr. Wentworth, sir; that was 
all, sir.” 

“ None for Mr. Vernon?” 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


87 


“ No, sir.” 

“ Why !” exclaimed Agnes, with a note of dismay, as 
she opened a fresh copy of a New York newspaper 
that lay on the table. 

“What?” rejoined her sister and brother; “what 
is it ?” 

“Such a hateful, conceited, absurd critique upon 
Mr. Vernon’s Isabella and Columbus!” 

“Ah I” said the legal Walter, coming up to the table; 
“and here is the paper-knife on the floor; and the 
leaves are cut, — of that piece and no other. He has 
been reading it; and now the murder’s out. Well, I 
am glad if it’s no worse. Silly fellow I Who cares 
for these things but the critic and the critic- ee "^ — I 
shall go and ask him.” 

Walter did go, and very likely did ask him, but proba- 
bly did not get much in the way of an answer ; as he soon 
came down again, and told Agnes that he was right in 
his guess. Vernon was simply beside himself at that 
“ article,” but Walter “ should not wonder if those 
Knickerbockers found they had waked up the wrong 
passenger;” for Vernon was at work with might and 
main at an answer ; and that was a game at which 
nobody was “likely to beat him, unless they could 
knock up the very ghost of Junius.” 

Those who were behind the scenes at that time knew 
of a certain “art-critic in art-journals,” as he would 
no doubt have called himself, who has since, as a man, 
happily survived himself as a writer, but who was, in 
his literary lifetime, a sore thorn in the side of some of 
his sensitive betters. The critic proper, like the poet, 
is born, not made ; but this critic improper was made, 


88 


AQNES WENTWORTH. 


not born. He was a well-meaning, well-educated, and 
wealthy man, with much taste for art, though not much 
taste in art. He bought the pictures of some popular 
artists, and with their pictures their golden opinions. 
He feasted and flattered certain editors, and inveigled 
them into printing his critical essays, which 

“ Really had been quite as well 
Hushed up among his friends.” 

When they could — and were wise — they kept him 
upon the mediaevals; and there, being studious and 
painstaking, and having the matured opinion of the 
world to guide him, he did pretty well. It was not 
often that his remarks were of a nature to give any 
pain or to do any harm to Raphael or Correggio. 
Titian he patronized ; and nothing could exceed his 
complaisance to Michael Angelo. But now and then, 
in order to keep him contented, it became necessary to 
let him try his dull scalpel upon a new and living sub- 
ject ; and then woe unto that subject I How he would 
hack and hew and fumble and grope at random among 
the nerves and vitals, anuBsthetized himself by his own 
purblindness I He had been growing restless of late ; 
and Vernon, being a bird of passage,. with no special 
interest in the Middle States, was conveniently pitched 
upon for his victim. 

What to make of his victim the art-critic did not 
know. Was it fowl, or only an odd fish ? Mr. Agas- 
siz says that is not always an easy question to an- 
swer. Vernon was a genius; and genius, especially 
when in its youth, is wont to be a puzzling thing to 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


89 


those who have not any.* His pictures had been as 
yet little seen and less understood. It rested with our 
“art-critic’^ to give the cue, with regard to them, to 
an influential Mutual Admiration Society to which the 
“ art-critic” belonged. 

What to do, then, he honestly could not tell. He did 
after his kind ; he ran for luck. He had not seen all 
the pictures himself ; that made little difference ; he 
questioned his wife’s sister, an accomplished young 
lady, who had seen all the pictures. He said “ chiar- 
oscuro f and “breadth,” and “tone,” a good many 
times, in a manner to prove his general information. 
Then, in a manner to prove his general benevolence, 
he gave Yernon much credit for sundry excellencies 
which he had not. But by way of proving his impar- 
tiality, and having besides, as the literary lads of our 
day are too apt to have, the “ Saturday Review” upon 
the brain, he urgently put our hero “ on his guard 
against a lamentably manifest tendency to Southern 
shoddy and finery.” Especially he bemoaned himself 
and his prey over “the cabinet picture of Isabella and 
Columbus, which might have been really noble, had 
the figures, instead of being dressed as if by the tailor 
and mantuamaker, been draped in the grand style as if 
by the artist.” 

Now, I conceive that appropriate attire goes as legiti- 
mately to the “ counterfeit presentment” of men and 


* “ Crude book,” said the little critic of a little newspaper 
that I was turning over the other day ; and he said it of “Jane 
Eyre.” “ Master-work of a great genius,” says Thackeray 
the Great. 


8 * 


90 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


women as appropriate furs and feathers to that of birds 
and beasts. Still, it is not for me as a connoisseur to 
presume to defend that quaint little exquisite gem, 
which has since received the highest praise from some 
of the highest authorities at home and abroad. But, 
speaking only after the manner of a man, I beg leave 
to say that my copy of it is the first thing I should try 
to save if my house were on fire. And further, still 
after the manner of a man, I aver that as, just now, I 
cheer my literary toils by looking up at it on the wall of 
that den of which I am a denizen, I can hear — with ear 
or eye, — it does not matter which, — the very rustle and 
whistle of Isabella’s antique brocade, sweeping along 
around and after her across the mosaic floor of the au- 
dience-chamber, mingled with the tinkling jingle of the 
massy gold chain of the stately Genoese, as, following 
reverently, he murmurs his earnest broken Spanish 
near her side. I scent the roses whose soft fragrance- 
her plumy fan wafts towards me, as she says, with a 
queenly smile full of sweet hope and promise, “We 
will go to our lord the king.” And it is all so vivid 
and real that a European traveller once told me that 
when, some time after a first hasty view of it, it came up 
again in his memory, he could not without some tedious 
self-examination satisfy himself whether or no it was 
some scene in actual life that he himself had lived in. 
It is this reality which to my mind is one of the surest 
tests of real creative power; and this reality “the 
grand style,” — unless Homer’s is the grand style, — 
never gives. 

That painting was the first which had revealed to 
Vernon, and to the few of us who already knew and 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


91 


believed in him, beyond a doubt his possession of that 
power. Accordingly, he loved it as himself, and rever- 
enced it, — as the true artist does revere his true work, 
— as something higher and nobler than himself. Fur- 
ther, ascetic in most things both by choice and neces- 
sity, I really believe he thought it his mission to wean 
his countrymen, in the interest of high art, from the frip- 
pery lust of the eye and the pride of life ; wherefore to be 
accused of pandering to them made him ready tO foam at 
the mouth. Furthermore, he had hoped through this 
painting to obtain an order for a life-size copy for the 
Capitol at Washington, through that order to obtain 
other orders, both public and private, and through those 
orders to obtain Rosamond Wentworth; among all 
which unhatched eggs, — roc’s eggs as they were, — 
which he had been counting, the art-critic was dancing. 

Yernon came punctually down to dinner, flushed, 
taciturn, still abstemious, — though contrary to his 
custom he drank a glass or two of Champagne, — and 
awfully polite. When the other gentlemen followed 
the ladies into the library, his steps were heard again 
on his “winding way” to his room. When summoned 
to tea, he promptly reappeared, and poured four cupfuls 
down his throat, scalding hot ; after which he vanished 
anew, and was seen no more below that night. 

The house was dull; for Agnes was sorry, Rosa- 
mond writing to Mrs. Yan Rooselandt, and Walter 
out. At twelve, when he came home, Agnes whispered 
to him through the crack of her chamber-door, and 
begged him to see that Mr. Yernon did not sit up all 
night and make himself ill, for she could hear him 
every few minutes walking the floor overhead. 


92 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“All right,” said the obliging Walter. He ran up, 
tapped at Vernon’s door, and presently went in. The 
sound of footsteps ceased, and was succeeded by that of 
voices, — Vernon’s, Agnes thought, reading aloud in a 
high, excited key, and interrupted from time to time 
by a burst of laughter in Walter’s. Then Vernon’s 
door, and then Walter’s, opened and shut. 

She gently closed and locked her own ; and all was 
still for the night. 

At breakfast, the next morning, Vernon took strong 
coffee, but still seemed unable to eat. His eyes were 
bloodshot, his cheeks hollow, and his whole counte- 
nance haggard. He was not cheerful, precisely, but 
talkative, facetious, and flighty. Agnes had never 
seen him when she liked him so little or pitied him so 
much. 

“Vernon has been and gone and done it,” said tardy 
Walter triumphantly, as she ministered to his necessi- 
ties after the others had left the breakfast-room. “He 
read me his answer last night. It’s the most finished 
piece of blasting sarcasm, I’d lay you any wager, that 
ever was written on this sid^of the water. He needn’t 
tell us he is old Randolph of Roanoke’s kinsman. 
Every word bites ; every bite stings ; and every sting 
is barbed. It will stick to that dunce as long as he 
lives.” 

Agnes turned pale, and poured out Walter’s tea into 
the sugar-bowl. “ Dear Walter,” cried she, “ he surely 
will not publish it 1” 

“Yes, he will, — in a rival newspaper that will be only 
too glad to get it. There aren’t many hands, good at 
the brush, that are as good at the pen as Vernon’s. — 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


93 


It will sell the whole edition ; it’s a perfect mosaic of 
scorpions’ tails. We shall see fan.” 

“Oh, but, dear Walter, persuade him, — do not let 
him publish it I It does not seem worthy of Mr. Yer- 
non to let himself down to the level of dunces — for pri- 
vate revenge.” 

“You think we could make that sort of doctrine go 
down with a Southerner ?” 

“ I hope you could, if a Southerner was a gentleman 
and a Christian.” 

In their preoccupation they either did not notice 
steps that were coming in from the passage, or thought 
they were John’s; but it was Vernon who spoke be- 
hind them in a rather constrained voice : “ I beg your 
pardon ; I fear I intrude.” 

“No, you don’t, brother of my soul, either now or 
ever,” said Walter, turning round and pushing a chair 
toward him ; “on the contrary, you have a particu- 
larly good right to a share in our discussion.” 

“ As to whether a Southerner can be a Christian and 
a gentleman?” said Vernon, coloring; but, even as he 
said it, he smiled, softened alike by Walter’s good 
humor and by a glance at Agnes’s face. “ I fear I have 
given all my friends too much reason to doubt it,” he 
continued, “for the last twenty-four hours, in spite of 
myself. Forgive me ; you will both of you forgive and 
forget, will you not? Walter knows — in part he 
knows — how much I have had to throw me off my 
balance ; but I believe now I have the odds on my 
own side.” 

Agnes could not speak. 

Walter did it for her. “You misapprehend the ques- 


94 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


tion a little. It was not as to the qualities of a South- 
erner as a guest; those our own experience would lead 
us to rate very high. It was as to the qualities of a 
Northerner as a friend ; there this little sister of mine 
was taking me to task ; and I am beginning to fear 
that I shan’t be able to get up much of a defence.” 

Yernon was thoroughly perplexed; and his perplex- 
ity acted upon his ire much as turning a refractory 
horse round three times does upon its disposition to 
run away. He looked more and more present with 
them and absent from the art-critic, and said, taking 
the offered chair, “ And is this the woolsack, and am 
I the judge ? Observe, I am in a dilemma ; for I have 
the strongest possible prepossession in favor both of 
the innocence of the defendant and of the wisdom and 
mercy of the plaintiff. Now, Walter, what have you 
been doing to me ?” 

“ That is for the opposite counsel to say.” 

“ She enters a nolle prosequi, you see,” said Vernon. 

“ Then she becomes an accessory after the fact.” 

Then, Miss Agnes, I am to infer — am I ? — that you 
quite give up the cause of your old friend, and will not 
speak when a word from you might save him. — It is a 
severe punishment, but not more severe, I dare say, 
than he deserves for his tigrerie,''' said Yernon, now 
half in jest and half in earnest. 

‘‘ No, indeed, Mr. Yernon,” cried Agnes, taking 
him wholly in earnest, and fairly driven to bay. “ To 
convince you that I do not think you deserve any pun- 
ishment at all I will speak, if nothing else would make 
me. But if you think it is the very spirit of presump- 
tion that speaks in me, remember you spoke to it first; 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


95 


and then, by the common law of ghosts, it had to an- 
swer. Walter was telling me what a wonderfully 
powerful answer you had written to that unfortunate 
notice of your beautiful picture, and that you were 
going to print it, and how admirable it was— in some 
respects — but ” 

“ ‘But’ echoed Yernon encouragingly to Agnes, 
while he shook his head mischievously at Walter. 

“ But that it would make people very angry ; and I 
was beginning to tell him, I thought the part of a good 
friend would be to beg you not to publish it.” Ag- 
nes was fairly in for it now, and, with brightening eyes 
and flushing cheeks, rushed on, as people do when they 
catch themselves running down too steep a mountain, 
faster and faster to keep themselves from a downfall 

“ 0 Mr. Yernon, it is fit and right that all the 
fellow-creatures of great geniuses should look up to 
them ; but is it good for them to look down on their 
fellow-creatures? If an angel were sent to hover over 
this world and make it seem more bright and beautiful, 
and a few ignorant, silly people threw mud at him, and 
he came down to return their blows, would it not 
be ” she hesitated. 

“ A come-down on the part of the angel,” suggested 
the helpful Walter promptly. 

“Yes,” said Agnes, laughing and taking breath; 
“that precisely. And oh, Mr. Yernon, it made me 
think of the life of poor Haydon ; you have read it ?” 

“ No ; will you please to tell me about it ?” 

“ He fell into a quarrel in his youth, that imbittered 
his after-life. One of his friends told him to answer 
his enemies with his brush instead of his pen. But, 


96 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


instead, he wrote and wrote ; and such a nest of hor- 
nets he stirred up, within and without him ! Would 
it not have been much better for him to forgive them, 
and paint calmly on without minding them, trying to 
get the better of them through his work pleaded 
Agnes, becoming in her zeal somewhat confused in her 
rhetoric. 

Vernon was amused alike by that confusion and by 
the artless enthusiasm which led to it. His pleased 
look, which she did not quite understand, emboldened 
her to go on. 

“ He would have been a much greater artist if he 
had been a greater Christian, — more unworldly. — And 
this poor man, who thought he knew so much, and 
knew no better than to attack you, — is not he to be 
pitied? 0 Mr. Vernon,” cried she, clasping her hands 
involuntarily, “you do not know how dreadful it is 
not to be a genius ! — And Walter says your satire 
will cling to him for life. Do you know who he is ? — 
Is he a bad man, on the whole, do you think ?” 

“No; on the contrary, I understand he has every 
merit under the sun, except ability and humility,” said 
the candid Vernon, who was himself in those days, 
before the sympathy of others had softened and their 
admiration had humbled him, rather prouder than 
Lucifer. 

“And now he will lose even what merit he has, — 
he will be so filled with resentment and anger. 0 

Mr. Vernon, it is so bad — don’t you think so? for 

anybody to be angry ! — Am I giving too much good 
advice?” 

“Not for me,” said Vernon. “ 1 thank you for every 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


97 


word, past or to come. I listen to it as some other 
sinners love to read the Bible, and hope as they do 
that I may find grace to act upon it, — some other time 
if not now.” 

The tone in which he spoke was altogether kind, re- 
spectful, and sincere ; but the speech was not such as 
to lead Agnes to say more. She arose and went up 
to the library, disappointed in him, and abashed by a 
sense of having been herself but a weak advocate in a 
good cause. The young men soon followed. She 
heard their voices as they came up the stairs. 

“Find it, John,” said Walter, “and bring it up 
here.” 

“ Thank you,” returned Yernon ; “ I wished to make 
assurance doubly sure on one point in it, before I sent 
olf my manuscript.” 

They came in. John presently followed with a 
thick newspaper, which he handed to Walter, and 
Walter to Yernon. It was the peccant “weekly.” 
Yernon unfolded and threw it open; when out flew 
and fell around him, a perfect shower of little printed 
papers in the shape of fools’-caps and feathers, into 
which the peccant essay proved to have been com- 
pletely cut up. 

“ What’s all this?” cried Walter. 

“ Indeed, sir, I can’t imagine, sir,” cried the literary 
John, aghast. “ It hadn’t but only just went into the 
kitchen, sir. I’m very sorry, sir.” 

“And so you ought to be, sir!” said Mr. Went- 
worth, who had a particularly high sense of the invio- 
lability of all documents, written or printed. “ If 
anything of this kind happens again, you will take no 
9 


98 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


newspapers below stairs henceforward until they are 
a week old,” 

“No, sir, thank you, sir,” said John, retreating in 
disorder. 

“ Papa,” said Agnes in a low voice, “ please not to 
blame John. I’m very sorry, — it was I ” 

“John,” called the old gentleman, — and the discom- 
fited John recrossed the threshold, — “ I am glad to hear 
that it was not your fault. — That is all.” 

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir.” John again made his 
retreat; and, if she had thought it quite dignified, 
Agnes would have been only too thankful to follow 
his example. 

“I am very sorry indeed, if you wanted it,” she re- 
peated to Vernon. 

“And so you ought to be,” Mr. Wentworth might 
have repeated to her, if they had been alone or if she 
had been a very little younger. As it was, he con- 
tented himself with saying, “ What could have pos- 
sessed you, my dear ?” 

“ I — I thought everybody had done with it.” 

“A rather poor reason,” said he, taking up his hat 
and gloves, and leaving the room. 

“And a rather inscrutable one,” said the intolerable 
Walter. “ Try again, Agny.” 

“Well, I was angry myself then, last night,” said 
Agnes, “if I must own it Just at first, who could 
possibly help it?” she added, very red at being de- 
tected in a piece of practice so opposed to her preach- 
ing ; and then a sense of the comicality of the detection 
rushed upon her. 

Walter was not the man to lose any point of that. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


99 


“ Ila, ha, ha!” shouted he. “It is so bad for any- 
body to be angry! Ho, ho, ho, 

‘Angel of patience, sent to calm !* — 

and so forth, and so forth, and so forth.” 

The infection of Walter’s laugh was always irre- 
sistible, especially to Agnes ; hers joined it now like a 
chime of fairy-bells ; and she laughed on uncontrollably 
till checked by the thought of Yernon. How would 
he, in his present mood, take such silly behavior ? 

He had walked to the further end of the library, and 
was coming back. He laughed with them, but not 
loud nor long. He came up to her, and took both her 
hands for an instant in his. She thought that there 
were tears in his eyes ; but he left her again so quickly 
and suddenly that she could scarcely tell. He stood 
before the hearth, took a match from the mantel-piece, 
and lighted it Then he drew from his pocket a roll 
of paper and, turning, silently held it toward her. 
Stepping forward, she read at the top of it, in his re- 
markably symmetrical and spirited handwriting, the 
words Carnifex Carnijicatus.'^ She would have 
received it from his hand; but he withdrew it, held it 
over the pan, and made a funnel of it for the match. 
In a moment more it was thrown under the grate, all 
in flames; and their cruel blue and yellow dragons’ 
tongues had licked and sucked it down into the ashes, 
before she fairly knew what he was doing. 

He heaved a deep sigh, but checking it said, as if 
with the last half of it, “A bonfire for you. Miss 
Agnes, in return for your fools’-caps,” and was gone 
before she recovered presence of mind enough to 
answer. 


100 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


CHAPTER XV. 

Before long, however, Vernon was in the library 
again, with his broad-brimmed felt hat in one hand 
and his sketching-box in the other. “ Walter,’^ said 
he, “you promised to show me the Waverley oaks 
and water-fall some day ; why not to-day 

“The very day for it!’’ cried Walter, who never 
knew a holiday come out of season. 

“And will you not join us. Miss Agnes, and take a 
sketching-lesson? We have both of us lost a day; 
but it shall not be my fault if it happens again.” 

Agnes’s eyes lighted up : “ Oh, thank you ; and per- 
haps my sister can come too. We will carry our 
luncheon ; and papa ordered dinner an hour later than 
usual. How fortunate 1” 

She ran up to Rosamond, who demurred a little 
but presently consented. She ran down to nurse, 
who demurred likewise but presently set forth bread, 
butter, ham, and mustard on the dining-room table. 
She called Walter, who at first conducted himself like 
one of Hotspur’s “ spirits from the vasty deep,” and 
would not come when she did call to him but who, 
being once fairly caught and brought by Vernon and 
tied, at her bidding, into a clean checked apron of 
nurse’s, speedily became tractable. He carved and 
minced fat and lean, as if for a wager ; Agnes, mean- 
time, buttered the ends of alternate loaves of bread ; and 
the sure-handed Vernon, taking them from her in turn, 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


101 


shaved them off as thin as yellow-rose-leaves. With 
such spirited assistance on the part of the youths, the 
maiden soon had the provender converted into a 
snowy, pink-lipped mound of unsurpassable sand- 
wiches, and compactly packed in a moist damask 
napkin. Then Walter was sent to the cellar for 
Seltzer-water and bottled cider; while Vernon went 
into the garden for vine-leaves to line the great Fayal 
basket, which Agnes was extorting from Mrs. Tibbets 
and emptying of its store of small table-linens. Lastly 
the little mistress, coming in from the pantry with her 
apron full of rare-ripe peaches, fitted them into every 
chink; and a picturesque load it was that Walter had 
to carry. 

“ That is more than I shall want,” remonstrated 
Walter, as Agnes put the handle of the basket into his 
lazy hand. 

“ But no more than you can carry, dear,” answered 
she unrelentingly. 

“And you will not have so much to bring back,” 
added Rosamond for his consolation. 

“ I could carry it better now, if it was better disposed,” 
persisted the grumbler, as they turned up by the State- 
House toward the railroad station ; “ stage-coaches 
divide their passengers between outside and in. Those 
sandwiches looked very delicate; why shouldn’t I 
give an inside place to them ?” 

In short, after the manner of merry young people 
on a junket, they talked more nonsense than I dare 
repeat, and laughed at it more than I dare report. 
The spirits of them all were high, more or less, for 
different reasons: Vernon’s were so with the conscious- 
9 * 


102 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


ness of a victory over himself, of an act of magnanimous 
forbearance, as it seemed to him, toward an enemy, 
and one of gTatitude scarcely less magnanimous to 
ward a good little sympathizing school-girl. Agnes 
was the lighter-hearted for a sense of peril escaped, 
and of a friend and benefactor saved from an un- 
becoming act and its consequences. The pleasure- 
loving Rosamond was happy, because she had a 
pleasant novelty to enjoy; and Walter, finally, was so 
because he was idle. 

After being in the close, smoky steam-cars just 
long enough to be glad to be out of them, they alighted 
in pretty, wild, open country. The brisk reaction of 
September was just setting in upon the dog-days. The 
air was dry, clear, and just cool enough to be, even to 
Southern Vernon, not chilling but bracing. Even the 
strong heat of the unclouded sun was enervating no 
longer, but stimulating. 

Helping and cheering on one another, they chased 
the waterfall by the sound, along the clear, pebbly 
brook, into and through the wood. They struggled 
together through thickets richly studded with the 
berries of jetty prim, coral nightshade, and grayish- 
blue cedar. They scrambled over loose-piled walls of 
unhewn stones, and sprang from block to block of 
rock matted and hidden with a thick tapestry of 
green chenille moss. All merrily vied with one an- 
other in the most assiduous, solicitous, and flattering 
if not wholly disinterested, attentions to Walter, the 
basket-bearer. These he did his best to acknowledge, 
by making a feint of losing his balance in the very 
middle of the venerable but most unstable plank 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


103 


which spans the summit of the waterfall. Being in- 
stantly succored and pulled and propelled across, by 
means of a simultaneous and most unanimous poking 
and hooking of parasols and sketching-umbrella before 
and behind, he lost no time in sinking down on the 
bank of the little glassy lake, and declared himself un- 
able to proceed unless restoratives should be admin- 
istered upon the spot, — which they were. The party 
all seated themselves then and there, with still waters 
before and falling waters behind and beneath them, 
and gave themselves up at their ease, with youthful 
zest, to the enjoyment of themselves, one another, the 
scene, and the day. 

Rosamond was, — so at least Vernon thought, — even 
for her, peculiarly merry and kind. She had seldom 
looked quite so lovely as she saw herself now in the 
lake at her feet. She had that genuine, essential 
beauty for all times and places, which belongs only to 
the richest organizations and the most perfect health. 
Her nut-brown curls were lifted and tossed by the 
breeze ; they were all the more picturesque. Her hazel 
eyes were darkened and brightened with mirth and 
enterprise. Her smooth, brunette skin, neither suf- 
fused nor paled with fatigue, as that of a weaklier 
woman would have been, was warmed and cleared by 
exercise and laughter into its most gorgeous and 
Titian-like brilliancy. It seemed a beautiful Undine 
that looked archly up at her through the clear, crystal 
water, robed in the softest, purest green, and crowned, 
as she was by the zealous hands of Agnes, with a 
wreath of oak-leaves and young acorns. 

She no longer remembered to steel herself against 


104 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


Yernon. Here, under the trees and on the turf, away 
from fripperies and fineries, he appeared — with his 
beauty, his chivalrous courtesy and grace, — with the 
wild charm of the tales and legends that he told, and 
the passionate melody of the songs he sang, — in his 
own individual manhood, as rich as man might be. 
She, looking upon him, forgot the future in the present. 
He, seeing her smile upon him, forgot the present in 
the future. 

So they all smiled, chatted, laughed, and sang to- 
gether for a delicious little while ; and then, for a little 
while still more delicious, the spirits of the woods and 
waters overcame them. Their own voices died away ; 
and in an enchanted day-dream they sat listening to 
those of the birds, the breezes, and the brook, and 
scarcely thought but, rather, dimly felt in the mimic 
Eden that surrounded them, how beautiful an earthly 
immortality of youth, summer, friendship, love, and 
out-door happiness might be. 

But the wanton Walter would not long leave the 
others in peace to their unwritten poetry. With a 
dreadful lapse into prose he began, with the sketching- 
umbrella, to poke and stir up a frog, and to ask it how 
it would like its hind-legs broiled for supper. Where- 
upon Agnes, the indiscriminate guardian of the brute 
creation, proposed an instant diversion in favor of the 
oaks. She was seconded by Yernon, who started up 
remembering that who would win must work, and 
rescued the desecrated umbrella from the profane hands 
of Master Wentworth. 

To the oaks then they went ; and under and before 
the oaks they sat down again. Yernon took two ob- 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


105 


longs of academy-board from his box, and began to 
sketch and to teach Agnes. Soon, however, one of 
his moods of irresistible inspiration came upon him. 
She could not keep up with him, nor would keep him 
waiting for her. With an agreement that he should 
make her amends another time, they were both glad to 
settle it, that for the present he alone should sketch 
and she look on. 

Vernon was not one of that modern school of artists 
who painfully flay Nature alive by inches, and present 
you with a patchwork only of her skin ; he painted her 
soul and body. Agnes straightway saw one magnifi- 
cent oak, full of lusty life, spring and project itself out 
of the forming picture under his hand. It tossed its 
wide armfuls of green about as if to catch all the sun- 
beams^ and to defy and ward off the clouds. But at 
the foot lay another at its length, dead, stripped and 
stark. Next the childlike watcher, with infinite delight 
and glee, saw the green boughs beginning to swarm 
with little, peeping, lurking fairies, — among them one at 
the top with a tiny crown and sceptre and the features of 
Rosamond, one below bearing the face of Vernon, and 
between them another, identified with herself by its 
blue robe and yellow hair, but with an averted counte- 
nance, which impressed on her with a passing pang the 
conviction that Mr. Vernon, like Mrs. Tibbets, found less 
to commend in the front than in the back of her head. 
And next, after a little puzzling and a few experi- 
mental splashes on the corner of Agnes’s board, Walter 
was seen astride of a wind-tossed twig, in the char- 
acter of Puck; while old nurse rode around him in the 
air on a broom-stick. So much done, Vernon began to 


106 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


set in a dim procession similar figures upon the fallen 
oak, dressed not in flowery but in ashen hues. Their 
attitudes were those of mourning; and in their hands 
they trailed sprays of cypress and love-lies-bleeding. 
And still Agnes watched in silence, and forgot all 
besides. 

But Rosamond broke in on the silence, looking up 
from the novel she was reading : “ Shall not we have 
a shower 

“Looks like it,” answered Walter phlegmatically, 
as he lay on his back on the turf with his cigar in his 
mouth, surveying the west through the little rings of 
smoke he was tossing up, one after another, with a 
skill which bore witness to much practice. 

“Oh dear, I hope not,” cried Agnes, “before Mr. 
Vernon has time to finish his sketch I You have not 
put Walter in there, yet; have you ?” 

“No ; I am in two minds about it. I can’t imagine 
Puck weeping, except with his fists in his eyes, which 
would not be tragic.” 

“ But rather Gothic, might it not ?” 

“ More grotesque than picturesque, I fear. Cannot 
you think of something else ?” 

“ I wish I could. He might be handing about a 
lily-bell by way of a tear-bottle ; but then, unless peo- 
ple were told, I do not see how they ever should know 
what it meant.” The beautiful extravaganza pro- 
ceeded ; and they were again lost in fairy -land. 

But Rosamond had risen from her seat under the 
tree and was moving restlessly, and anxiously looking 
at the sky. “Dear Walter, the clouds are so very 
black ! Why did you not tell us ?” 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


107 


“ Why, I did not see what you could do about it. 
If- you were a pearl-powdery lady, and happened to 
have your puff-ball in your pocket, I might climb up 
the tree perhaps and try it on that ague-cheeked fellow 
nearest overhead.” 

Rosamond was too uncomfortable to laugh at non- 
sense any more. By some anomaly in her vigorous 
nature which, as I do not understand it, I do not un- 
dertake to explain, she, who was seldom weak and 
never on any other occasion timid, was always made 
miserable by a thunder-storm. There was no affecta- 
tion about the matter, — of so much at least I am sure. 
Whatever her other failings might be, no one who 
knew Rosamond Wentworth could suspect her of 
affectation. — In fact she was ashamed to own it ; and 
thus it happened that Walter did not know of it ; or he 
would not have made so light of her uneasiness. “ My 
hat and humming-bird will be ruined,” said she, wish- 
ing to make use of a plea whose force he could appre- 
ciate. 

“I’m at your service, if you’d like to go,” said he, 
rising and making an unburnt sacrifice to her of one 
half of his cigar. 

“ Thank you; but where ? The storm will be down 
upon us before we can reach the station. Oh, that 
forked lightning I” 

Walter, seeing her turn pale, darted up a near knoll 
and took an observation. “There’s a pleasant-looking, 
odd old farm-house close by,” said he hurrying back 
to her. “ Come, Rosy, give me your hand ; and I’ll 
run you up there before you know it. House, or barn 
at all events, will take you in safe enough; and I 


108 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


dare say the shower won’t last five minutes. Come, 
artists.” 

As the first pair started, the second pair stood up ; 
but it was to face the storm, not to fly from it. The 
strong gale, that comes before the rain, struck them 
bringing with it the dust of unseen lands. Agnes 
threw her girlish head far back till she saw no more of 
earth, but only a deep, dark dome bung with hurried 
clouds above her, striped with lightnings, and rimmed 
with the tops of tossing trees. Yernon reared himself 
for a moment, tall and fiery, drinking in the spirit of 
the whole scene, with the wind sweeping his fine dark 
hair wildly back from his brow and flashing eyes. 
Then he threw himself down again, caught up his 
sketch, and began to dash in the awful pile of clouds 
before them for a background, instead of the clear 
insipid blue that was there before. 

“ Oh, set in it the bow of promise,” cried Agnes, 
“ spanning the living and the dead !” 

“I will, God willing,” answered he, nodding to her 
and painting on. 

Yernon seemed more and more surcharged with the 
electricity that quivered and flickered in the air. Never 
before had he painted with such ease and speed. His 
brush flew as if of itself. Never before had he looked so 
proudly, grandly happy, — so lifted above the hinder- 
ances and shackles of this life. Agnes did not know 
where most to gaze, — at the rush of the real or of the 
painted storm, or at him who seemed the incarnate spirit 
of them both. Beside, and a little behind him, she was 
so still that he forgot that he was not alone. When 
he spoke, it was only to the closing and overshadowing 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


109 


clouds: ‘'Keep off, — a little longer! — It is one of the 
moments of life that do not come twice in a lifetime!” 
— and then, when the thunder came and roared so that 
the deep murmur of his voice could scarcely be heard : 
—“Again — more music — more !” 

Till a strong hand laid upon her shoulder made her 
start and turn, Agnes did not perceive that Walter was 
near, — was come to make them go. 

“ Thank you, — presently,” said Yernon as if talking 
in his sleep. “ It is a remarkably dry storm.” 

“Oh, must I really? Oh, Watty! Only see how 
grand it is !” cried Agnes. 

“ Only see what a grand ducking we shall get,” 
panted he, with unperturbed good humor but making 
off wifh her as fast as he could. “ Didn’t you hear me 
call you ?” 

“ Why no ; did you ?” 

“ So loud you thought I was the thunder, I suppose. 
Why didn’t you come with us? We thought you 
were close at our heels.” 

“We did not know when you went nor where, that 
I can remember. Good luck, wasn’t it?” added she 
laughing, as they reached the farm-yard. 

“For you it might have been, if you like to have 
your dresses washed without troubling the laundress ; 
for Yernon it will be, if he wants to have his land- 
scape in water-colors. What a maniac he is! His 
finger and thumb will have a rheumatic fever apiece, 
and be cripples for life.” 

Agnes turned instead of entering the house, and 
looked back. No Yernon was in sight. “ He does seem 
too delicate to bear much exposure, to be sure,” said 
10 


110 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


she. “ I remember I heard him shiver and catch his 
breath as he worked ; and the wind is pretty keen. 
Dear Walter, couldn’t you borrow an umbrella and 
go back and bring him 

“Yes, and no, my dear. I could borrow an um- 
brella and go back.” 

“ He would come, if you took away his paints.” 

“ ‘ I dare do all that may become a man ; 

Who dares do more is none.’ 

You had better go in and keep warm with Rosamond, 
hadn’t you ? — in there, — on the right. I will see what 
I can see in the barn.” 

Agnes went in and, after the first welcome and 
acknowledgments, sat in prim school-girl silence, list- 
ening while Rosamond assisted their hostess in making 
talk. But five minutes seemed fifteen ; for the older 
sister was much less lively and more commonplace 
than usual; and the younger, anxious about Vernon. 

Besides, the child of the city was bewitched by the 
scene without. It carried her out of herself ; she could 
not give it up. She took a seat by the window, — but 
the window was shut, — and then in the porch ; and 
then she went as far as the paling and looked over. 
And then a sudden thought — half fun, half earnest — 
seized her, that she could steal Vernon’s paints and 
then he must come in. There was no time to think it 
over. It was now or never. Agnes w^as fleet of foot ; 
and off she ran. 

She remembered the ground. The wind bore her 
on. It seemed to her that she flew. She was behind 
Vernon, — behind the oak under which she had left 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


Ill 


him. She peeped noiselessly and cautiously around 
it. With his back to her, and to it, he still sat beneath 
it transported, — talking to himself or to the storm, 
glancing and painting. She stretched her hand warily 
out as his face was turned skyward ; she snatched the 
paint-box and made off with it. 

Beating back, burdened, against the wind was 
harder ; but she did it. The precious box was under 
cover; and she had not once been missed. Rosamond, 
shading her eyes from the now frequent flashes at 
doors and windows, was engrossed with the hard task 
of concealing her trepidation. Accustomed, too, to 
Agnes’s fits of silence she believed her to be all the 
time close by, and had neither fear nor suspicion of 
her being, as other silent young creatures are apt to 
be, in mischief. 

But, by the time Agnes had got her breath again, 
a fatal flaw in her stratagem had shown itself to her. 
Vernon might indeed be forced to stop painting; but 
how would he know where they had gone or where 
he should go?— The rain still held off; though the 
gale was every instant stronger and wilder. She darted 
back once more. 

The moment was favorable. The spell which held 
Vernon had been weakened by the mysterious disap- 
pearance of part of his tools. He had put down his 
palette and brushes to the leeward of the oak, with a 
heavy stone upon them to keep them steady, and was 
doing something with his knife to his sketch, bending 
intently over it. She dexterously made prize of the 
deposit, made good her retreat to the top of the knoll, 
and there, at safe distance, called his name. Her high, 


112 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


clear voice was blown on to him above all the other 
noise. He sprang to his feet and saw her. She 
looked like a white angel just alighted there, with its 
sky-blue robes, swayed and tossed. She held up her 
booty as a lure, beckoned, pointed, and flew away 
again. 

There was little time for protestations on his part ; 
nor could he make her hear them. Moreover the wind 
blew them back down his throat, and forced him to eat 
his own words with an unpleasant admixture of sand 
and gravel. Consoling himself with the dim recol- 
lection of a nursery adage, that every son of earth 
must sooner or later consume a peck of the substance 
of his parent, he started in pursuit of his property, half 
vexed and half entering into the spirit of his pupiPs 
practical joke. But, burdened with the sketch, he op- 
posed too broad a front to the wind ; and he was ex- 
hausted with late worry and later work. Agnes was 
outstripping him more and more ; and the farm-house 
was in sight ; when he and she were at once blinded 
and deafened by a simultaneous flash and crash, which 
seemed to strike the light out of the heavens and the 
earth from beneath their feet. Recovering himself in 
a measure, as he stumbled on with nothing but his 
impetus to guide him, it appeared to him that there 
was something strangely blue in the grass before him; 
and he brought himself up just as he would have 
stepped upon it. As he stooped to touch it, his dazzled 
eyes cleared themselves; and he saw the insensible 
form and face of Agnes, 

He caught her up; but even her light weight, with 
the shock, was too liiuch for him. He staggered under 


AGNES WEhTWORTH. 


113 


it, and might have fallen. But the whole household 
had been driven to doors and windows by the thunder- 
clap ; and Walter was with him before he had gone 
ten paces. Agnes was carried in and laid upon a 
sofa, to all appearance dead ; and then the rain came 
down in torrents; and all, within and without, was 
dark. 

Beyond the usual remedies for a swoon, which Rosa- 
mond, all her fears for herself put to flight by her 
agony of terror for her sister, was hastily trying, 
assisted zealously by all the other women, no one pres- 
ent knew what to do. Vernon felt her pulse, and let 
it go. ^ 

“ How is it ?” said Rosamond, whose fingers shook 
too much to tell her. 

For only answer, he turned from her to Walter and 
said, ‘'Lay your hand over her heart.’’ 

But Walter was crying like a child, and gazing help- 
lessly in her rigid face; and Rosamond laid her hand 
there and in her turn said nothing better than, “ Do 
something ! Don’t give her up. — It is not time. — It 
wdll never be time. Has nobody any pity ?” 

“Where does your physician live?” said Vernon 
instantly, to one of the inhabitants of the farm-house. 

In a low, awe-struck voice some one gave the re- 
quired direction, but ended with, “But you couldn’t 
get there now. No horse would face it. Only hear.” 

The gale had become almost a hurricane. The 
walls and wiiniows of the house shook, and rattled 
with the severed twigs and branches and the torrents 
of rain that struck them ; and the thunder, with its 
alternate growl and roar, was incessant. But pres- 

10 * 


114 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


ently, in a momentary lull, Rosamond was roused from 
the trance of despair in which she was clasping her 
now idle hands over Agnes, by the trampling of kick- 
ing, racing hoofs. She threw up the deluged window 
in hopes of calling in assistance, when she saw Yernon 
gallop by, bare-headedj on a wild, terrified, half-broken 
colt which, without saddle or bridle, he managed by 
the halter and the mane. The sight, and suggestion 
of coming aid, revived her. She plied her cares again 
with sucli skill as she had, though with as little suc- 
cess as before, till at length — how long it seemed ! — 
the hoofs again were heard, and Yernon drenched 
from head to foot, with water dripping from his 
straightened locks, came into the room sadly and 
mutely, as we go into a chamber where one dead is 
lying. 

Rosamond, as mutely, caught his hand in both of. 
hers and looked into his face. 

“ Dr. is coming,” said he. 

“ ‘ Coming !’ Oh, my God, why is he not come ?” 

A The old man could not ride the horse that carried 

me,” answered Yernon soothingly. “ He says ” 

- “Let me jist stthraighten her out coffin-shape a bit, 
dear,” said an Irish voice behind them ; “ Til be aisier 
done now nor aftther.” 

“ Let her alone !” cried Walter, starting up from his 
knees beside Agnes. “ How dare you ?” 

“ Was anybody hurt?” asked a softer voice, in the 
same breath with his. 

One exclamation of joy that was akin to horror 
broke out through the place, as everybody rushed for- 
ward to the sofa. Agnes had suddenly raised herself 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


115 


upon her elbow, and was gazing about her with an 
expression of wonder and perplexity working its way 
through the stupefaction in her face. 

‘‘You ought to know best. Oh, Agny, Agny !” 
answered Walter laughing and crying together, and 
throwing his arms around her as she sank back again. 

“ Don’t agitate her. Give her air I” exclaimed Rosa- 
mond.” 

“Hush; stand back!” said Vernon, taking Walter 
off. 

Agnes’s eyes were once more closed ; though the ap- 
palling look of soullessness did not return to her face. 
Her head was not yet clear ; and the faces and fur- 
niture swam round about her. The room was quieted ; 
and Rosamond bathed her forehead with Cologne- 
water. Presently she tried to rouse herself anew and 
repeated, more eagerly, “ Is everybody safe ?” 

‘‘ Quite safe, dearest,” answered Rosamond. 

“ Everything ? — the — the paints ?” persisted Agnes 
in a few minutes more. “ They are consecrated now — 
the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost. They 
must be kept holy. Oh, are they safe ?” 

Rosamond and Walter looked at each other, too 
much alarmed by the delirious sound which the speech 
had to their ears to think how to answer it. 

But Vernon perhaps, in some respects, understood 
his pupil better. He replied reassuringly in a gentle, 
commonplace way, “ Quite safe; see,” and held before 
her not only the box, but the other implements, which 
one of the servants had picked up at her side on the 
turf when she was carried in. 

She opened her eyes ; and the sight of his condition 


116 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


roused her for the moment still more from her dreami- 
ness. He was caught in the rain after all,” cried she. 
“Dear Walter, oh do take care of him — now! Oh, 
how ill he will be 1” 

“Oh yes, yes! do go and take care of yourself, Mr. 
Yernon. How could we forget you so long?’ ex- 
claimed Rosamond, turning up toward him a counte- 
nance beaming with gratitude and relief. 

“ How could you not ?” answered he, answering her 
look, also, with one full of sympathy and tenderness. 

“ Come with me, you walking water-spout,” cried 
Walter, restored to cheerfulness, subordination, and 
efficiency. “ Make your way to the kitchen-fire, while 
I see about borrowing you a suit of clothes.” 

“ Do — do go,” said Agnes, lifting her heavy lids 
again, and seeing him still there gazing down upon 
her, — no, on Rosamond, who was supporting her in 
her arms. 

“I will — I will go ; but tell me first — indeed. Miss 
Wentworth, I am persuaded there is no further cause 
for anxiety. You feel no pain. Miss Agnes, — no ill- 
ness now ?” 

She knitted her brows slightly; she was making an 
effort to consider and answer : “ I do not feel — at all — 
but death going and life coming back — only — is not 
my hand — my right hand — a little scorched ?” She 
tried to raise it ; but all her frame felt heavy and help- 
less. It was too great an effort for her even to keep 
her eyes unclosed, though only when they were so 
could she control her thoughts or her speech. 

Rosamond examined the pale, cold hand; there was 
a small, jagged, reddened brand rising on it even now. 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


117 


The sign of the cross,’’ murmured Agnes. “ What- 
ever the lightning strikes is sacred. — The scar of my 
mortal wound. I am raised from the dead. Those 
who rise from the dead must needs live for evermore 
the lives of the angels of God.” 

The young men had, in the mean time, left the 
room; and Rosamond was thankful when the physi- 
cian made his appearance, and still more when he gave 
his opinion : 

The effect of the shock was plainly passing off. — Ob- 
jection to taking her home ? None at all. The shower 
was entirely over. Give her a cup of hot coffee ; and 
put her into a carry-all. Then get her a coach at the 
other end of the railroad. The mental wandering 
would probably pass off in a few hours, with the par- 
tial paralysis of the muscles of the eyelid. If not, see 
a Boston doctor. Meanwhile, keep her still, and take 
care of her on general principles. 

“ Poor Rosy,” said Agnes, “ how pale you are ! You 
and Mr. Yernon are the ones to be pitied and tended 
instead of me, if justice were done. I never can for- 
give myself for making you all so much trouble with 
my silly trick.” But she did forgive herself presently. 

The young men came back to the parlor, — Yernon 
more picturesque than ever in his borrowed blue-home- 
spun frock, — just as the coffee was making Agnes quite 
herself again ; and there was a general inquiry about 
clocks, cars, and “ carry-all.” They had missed the 
train they at first meant to have taken. 

“ I am so sorry,” said Agnes, “ on account of papa!” 

“ But I am so glad,” exclaimed Rosamond, “ on ac- 
count of my diamond ring ! It is gone — see ! And 


118 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


it is not on the floor, nor in my glove, nor in my 
pocket,” said she, searching each successively ; “ I 
must have dropped it somewhere out-of-doors.” 

“ I will go back and look,” said Walter. “ I know 
exactly where you went.” 

“And I too,” said Vernon; “I dare say we shall 
find it ;” but he said so rather coolly, and did not show 
quite the alacrity with which he started for the doctor. 
For Rosamond’s self there was nothing which he would 
not gladly do ; but he had rather a spite against her 
diamonds, and a jealousy of her attachment to them. 

“No, pray don’t, Mr. Vernon,” replied she with 
sincere good nature. “ The ground will be very damp; 
and you have met only too much exposure on our 
account already.” 

“No, don’t, Ernest,” said Walter. “If I can’t find 
it to-night. I’ll come out again to-morrow. In the 
mean time, see if your own clothes are dry ; and get 
them on again as soon as they are, so as to be ready 
to start with us for home when I come back.” 

This being manifestly, to all, the best thing that he 
could do, Vernon did it, and had done it when Walter 
came back, with the ring, but with a more serious face 
than he was often seen to wear. “My dear fellow,” 
said he, “ you have had two escapes this afternoon ; 
and the one that we did not know of was the greatest.” 

“ How so ?” 

“The tree you sketched under is cleft down the 
front, — probably by the same stroke that overtook you 
and Agnes ; for I remember a crackling sound then 
that I could not account for before ; — and then the 
lightning seems to have glanced off ; for the log you 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


J19 


sat upon is split in two, and the very turf under it 
cloven. You moved none too soon.” 

Agnes shuddered. 

Yernon turned toward her, and pressed her hand 
with earnest kindness. “ So I have to thank you for 
saving me twice in one day,” said he, in a low, sweet 
tone that met only her ear, “from death, and from an 
action such as dead men are sorry to have to look back 
upon, perhaps.” 

They reached home, happily, without any further ad- 
venture; and as it was Mr. Wentworth who, happen- 
ing to be detained still later than they, kept dinner 
waiting instead of them, and as Agnes by making a 
little exertion managed to sit up in her place at the 
table as usual, the incident of the day would seem to 
have made little impression on him, but that he gave 
her two kisses for her one when she went to bed that 


120 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


CHAPTER XYI. 

Meanwhile the young people all spent together a 
most cheerful evening, and all the more so -for what 
children call “ a pleasant surprise.” Rosamond’s por- 
trait awaited them in the library ; no one remembered 
to tell them so but, when they went into the library, 
there it was ; and oh, how beautiful it was ! 

Yernon’s portraits have not been generally very cele- 
brated. To tell the truth, I am afraid he was not far 
wrong in saying that they did not deserve to be so. In 
general, he painted them against his will and judg- 
ment and, accordingly, with self-conflict and self-dis- 
trust enough to paralyze his powers. This particular 
specimen notwithstanding is, and is pronounced to be 
by some who know better than I, beautiful enough for 
a Titian and faithful enough for a mirror in the Palace 
of Truth. Single-portrait Yernon ! He should have 
burned all his other portraits, and shown only this. 

Of all things in life, — after her kin, — perhaps Rosa- 
mond ihost loved her beauty. Could she, Yernon 
asked himself, but learn to love him who had made it 
immortal ? He would ask her some time, but not now. 
This evening was almost perfect as it was. To make 
it more so, he probably thought, might be less easy 
than to mar it. But he had better, perhaps, have 
asked her then. Instead, he only took her picture up 
to his studio, — to scratch off a fly-spot on one corner, — 
and looked at it till morning. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


121 


That morning, Rosamond received a letter from Mrs. 
Egmont Van Rooselandt. 

The next evening, Walter knocked at Agnes’s cham- 
ber door. 

“ Who is it cried she and, hearing his voice, bade 
him come in. Contrary to her custom, she was lying 
down. Her simple life, — hours, dress, and food, — had 
kept her constitution sound to the core ; but it had 
been too monotonous and inactive a life hitherto to give 
her much vigor ; and she was growing fast. Accord- 
ingly she felt herself still shaken by the shock, follow- 
ing hard upon the unusual fatigue, of the day before. 
“ How’pleasant and kind it is in you to come up here 
and indulge me in my indolence I I have been trying 
to break through it and come down to see what you 
are all about. What is going on there 

“A good deal, I-am inclined to suspect.” 

“What? — 0 Walter, do you mean,” cried Agnes 
starting up on one arm, — “ Rosamond and Mr. Ver- 
non ?” 

“ Just that. Papa is out; and they have the library 
all to themselves. Vernon talked to me this afternoon : 
she never would give him a chance, he said, to speak 
to her.” 

“And you ? ” 

“ Had to tell her I thought the least she could do 
was, to hear what he had to say for himself, and put 
him out of his pain.” 

“ ‘Put him out of his pain’ I But oh, Walter, there 
is only one way for her to do that. Will not she do 
it?” 


11 


122 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“ I can’t tell. He’s a pretty resolute person ; but 
then she’s another.” 

‘'And not ready to say yes? — Oh, what a pity! 
How dreadful it would be! — Then, dear Watty, 
wouldn’t it have been safer and better for him to wait 
and hope ?” 

“For some people in his place, I dare say. For 
Vernon? — no, I don’t think so. No, he is one of your 
neck-or-nothing fellows. If he saw a bull in his path, 
he never would show it his back. He would face it, 
take it by the horns, and be gored or vault over it and 
leave it behind him. If a battery opened upon him, he 
would bear down on it full gallop and silence the guns, 
or be shot. That’s his way. At any rate, he says he 
can’t go abroad again in such suspense. He can’t be 
building all his life on what may be a crumbling foun- 
dation.” 

“But if she should say no, and persevere in it? 
What then ?” 

“For him? — Eternal woe, for perhaps a year, and 
then a smitation with some pretty Italian. It is a 
purely feminine view of the matter that you are in- 
clined to take, my dear little miss. There are as many 
chances in men’s lives as there are twelvemonths, at 
least so long as they are bachelors. I should be very 
sorry though, for Rosy’s sake. Not even she Avill 
have many chances of such a husband.” 

“Nor we, of such a brother,” Agnes laid herself 
back against her pillows, and was still. 

Walter left her, thinking her disposed to sleep. 

Therein he did not show his wonted penetration ; but 
for once she did wish him away, that she might pray 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


123 


for the success of Yernon’s suit, — a success which 
seemed to her to involve in it the very perfection of 
possible happiness for Rosamond, — for them all. And 
pray for it she did, with all her heart and mind and 
soul, — unconditionally, or with no qualification but for 
form’s sake, — as we do pray for specific temporal boons 
in our youth ; but as afterwards — if we learn the les- 
sons of our life aright and see how much more blessed 
often, than such prayers granted, are such prayers 
denied, — we dare demand nothing beneath the stars, — 
nothing but God’s grace to enable us to enjoy, or to 
employ, aright the boons of His own choosing. 


CHAPTER XYII. 

In the mean time let us put on our invisible rings 
on our Tarn-kappen, and hear the conclusion of the 
whole matter in the library. While Agnes was pray- 
ing, Rosamond was saying, “ I am doing what I hon- 
estly believe to be the best for your own welfare, Mr. 
Yernon.” 

“ May I not be permitted to judge of that for my- 
self?” rejoined Yernon with a haughtiness such as he 
was never known, before or afterward, to show towards 
any woman. 

“Most certainly, provided an equal liberty is con- 
ceded to me.” 

“ But one word more. Is it anything in my circum- 
stances that closes the door against me ?” 

“ That is a very hard question. Are not we, all of 


124 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


US, the creatures of circumstances ? If our circum- 
stances were different, so would our conduct be, — our 
characters, — we ourselves.” 

“ I am answered. But can you, — you, the very 
image of generous and noble womanhood, — can you be 
touched with selfishness and worldliuess ? Beautiful 
slave, will you sell yourself for gold 

“ That I never said,” cried Rosamond coloring high, 
“and'forgive me if I do say, Mr. Yernon, that not 
even our long friendship gives you any right to ask.” 

Yernon had gone too far, — a great deal too far. 
The consciousness of it struck him dumb, and gave 
Rosamond the advantage. 

As to his accusations, they were partly just and 
partly unjust. For their injustice and their justice 
she resented them equally. Recollecting herself how- 
ever, she was not slow to seize the advantage he had 
given: “If any apology is due, I do not think I am 
the one from whom it is due.” 

He bowed, and looked the acquiescence he could not 
speak. 

She went on: “Therefore I wish to be clearly 
understood as offering none. But if an old friend de- 
sires an explanation, an explanation I will give, even 
if it may be — must be — a painful one to us both. I 
have done you no wrong, Mr. Yernon; it is not I who 
seek to debar you from life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness. I have even been — in general — careful to 
do you no wrong. From the time I first saw cause to 
suspect what way your wishes tended, and how un- 
likely it was that it would ever be in my power to 
fulfil them, I have been studiously on my guard lest I 


AGiVFS WEN^TWORTn. 


125 


might unconsciously do anything to foster them. So 
far as our occasional relations as hostess and guest 
allowed, I have denied myself the pleasure which any 
person of any intellect and taste must find in the 
society of a man like you. You must do me the jus- 
tice to own that, from my early girlhood to the present 
day, I never trifled with you.” 

“I do.” 

“ Then you say that I am worldly ; but ” 

“ I had no right. I wish the tongue had been pal- 
sied that said it 1” 

“ But I do not wish anything by any means so 
harsh, ’’Teturned Rosamond, more and more mollified 
and faster and faster recovering her usual tone, “for 
I say so too. I am worldly. I know it. But then I 
think the only diflTerence on that point between me and 
my neighbors is, that they are worldly and do not 
know it. They seek their own earthly happiness; 
and so do I. They seek it in their own way ; and so 
do 1. Some seek it in the flattery of their partners 
at a ball; some, in that of their partners at the altar; 
and some, in that of far-off posterity ; and, for my part, 
I do not see why they have not all an equal right to 
choose. Then, to come back to our particular selves, 
your aspirations happen to turn in the direction of one 
of the heaux-arts, and mine in that of the beau-monde ; 
but now tell me, candid Mr. Yernon, — if you chal- 
lenge me to meet you on high spiritual ground, — are 
they not alike, like all the rest, of the earth, earthy ?” 

“Heaven forbid!” stammered he. “You cannot 
really think so. You must see how the fine arts 
spiritualize — how they ennoble — human life.” 

11 * 


126 


AGNES WENTW€iRTH. 


“ Yes, I think I do see how they spiritualize and 
ennoble it ; and that is a very little oftener, if at all, 
than they enervate and corrupt it Incidentally they 
embellish life, no doubt; and so, in my judgment, do 
the arts of conversation, — of dress, — in a word of 
fashionable society. But I know for one, that if I 
were to profess to pursue them for any other object 
than my own pleasure, I should be a hypocrite or a 
self-deceiver ; and I am neither. Then as to the other 
count, selfishness, I am compelled to say what I would 
rather not, that if it were selfish in me to refuse to sac- 
rifice my happiness to that of any one else, I cannot 
perceive why it would be any more disinterested in 
him to desire me to do so.’^ 

“I have given you a right to misunderstand me,” 
said Vernon struggling with himself. “ If I had only 
not so miserably forgotten myself I If I might still 
without presumption say — Oh, Miss Wentworth, be 
generous, — trust me I Be my idol, my muse, my 
divinity, — and let me — let me try to make you happy.” 

“ It could not be, Mr. Vernon; I could not trust my- 
self. I could not be happy without the means, any 
more than you could in the pursuit of them. Besides 
— you may think my principles very sordid ; and you 
may be right — but if there are any that I have and 
hold fast by, honesty is one. I could not be happy in 
debt nor keep out of it, I fear, without a pretty deep 
mine to draw upon; and so, — I’m very sorry, — but 
good-night.” 

Vernon made no further attempt to detain her. He 
had had enough. He was disgusted with her and 
with himself. 


AGN^S WENTWORTH. 


127 


CHAPTER XYITL 

Rosamond was, for the time, not much better off. 
She hastened to her chamber, locked the door, threw 
up the window] thrust her fingers through her thick 
ringlets and, pressing her palms upon her temples, sat 
looking out upon the graves and thinking and feeling 
more earnestly than she often felt or thought. 

At first, indeed, a sense of a great peril finally es- 
caped divided her attention with emotions of a painful 
kind. But the latter gained upon her more and more. 
Calm and Epicurean and anything rather than enthu- 
siastic or impressible as her nature and character were, 
she was amiable and affectionate, — in the habit, and fond, 
of giving pleasure. She had now given great and, by 
her, irremediable pain, and given it to an old friend of 
herself and to a dear friend of her brother and sister. 
Poor little Agnes ! — how glad she would have been, 
and how sorry she would be ! 

Then Rosamond, though as she most truly said 
neither a hypocrite nor a self-deceiver, loved to be on 
good terms with herself and to have others on good 
terms with her. She, as well as Yernon, was shocked 
at the recollection of the turn their conversation had 
taken, and of things which she had been betrayed by 
the heat of self-defence into saying. Her taste was too 
ladylike not to revolt at some of her principles, when 
they were once surprised out of her into open pro- 
fession. Rosamond’s distinguishing mental charac- 


128 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


teristics were clearness and truth. Though it may 
seem a paradox to say so, these mental merits were 
in part preserved to her by one of her worst moral 
demerits. She cared to reach no high standard ; ac- 
cordingly she was never tempted to blind her own 
eyes, or those of others, to the fact that she did reach 
no high standard. When she looked into her own 
character, therefore, — which was to be sure very 
seldom, — she saw into it, as she did into almost 
everything else that Miss Rosy saw fit to scrutinize, 
with most unhoodwinked distinctness from corner to 
corner. 

Was it true then, she now asked herself that, as she 
had said, she could be kept out of debt and dishonesty 
only by the possession of large means ? If so, then 
where were those means to come from ? Her Aunt 
Yan Rooselandt had no private fortune, and had a 
disease of the heart. Mr. Yan Rooselandt was her 
uncle by marriage only; and continued dependence 
upon him after “ anything happened” to his wife was 
likely to be, if not impossible, neither agreeable nor 
creditable. Mr. Wentworth had a large income from 
his profession ; but itr-w^ent almost as fast as it came, 
especially as he had had — till now, when Agnes was 
just beginning to gather the reins into her inexperi- 
enced hands, — nobody to regulate for him the expenses 
of his household. Except at the bar, he was a man 
much more theoretical than practical ; and Rosamond 
had often heard him provide for his family, to his own 
complete satisfaction, by saying that his daughters 
would marry as other girls did, and his son would have 
to shift for himself as he did before him, and so much 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


129 


the better ; parts would never make a lawyer out of 
such an idler, unless poverty came to their aid. 

Was it true then, as Yernon had asked her, that 
she would sell herself for gold ? She had evaded the 
charge with him ; it had a most ugly sound ; but could 
she refute it with herself? How else could a woman, 
bred as she had been, come by gold? — Yet how 
could a woman, bred as she had been, do without gold ? 
As she gazed down upon the tombstones she, for a mo- 
ment, almost envied those whose bodies slept beneath 
them ; but it was for a moment only, for their souls 
had gone to the judgment, in which Rosamond be- 
lieved and at which she trembled. There seemed no 
refuge for her even there ; and, for another bitterer 
instant, "Rosamond Wentworth was ready to wish that 
she had never been born. 

Such a mood was, however, too foreign to her habits 
and temperament to be durable or endurable. She 
turned from it immediately to hug herself upon her 
deliverance from a possible master so imperious and 
passionate as Yernon had proved himself likely to be- 
come. What a Pandemonium of passion and poverty 
the lives of such artists must be I” said she to herself 
with a shudder ; “ I declare it seems to me as if I had 
been looking down into it through a trap-door, and 
watching and listening to the graceful motions and 
melodious voice of one of the demons with a beau- 
tiful face, and all at once he had thrust up a long 
black claw and almost caught me. O Mr. Yernon! 
Mr. Yernon! To wait for you till my May-day is 
over, and there is no use in waiting any longer; to 
be your needle-woman, charwoman, washerwoman for 


130 


A O.VES WB.VT WOIi TH. 


aught I know, — in short, woman-of-all-work ; — to be 
called your muse once or twice a year, or whenever 
you happened to be in a good humor and to think of 
it; and to be all the time helping you as hard as. I 
could to turn yourself into a bankrupt and a thief, and 
myself into an ugly and most disconsolate old woman I 
What a handsome proposal! What wonder you were 
shocked at my folly and sin in not closing with it on 
the instant ! For your own sake, I wish most heartily 
that you were richer ; but I wish it less for my own ; 
for I begin to perceive that our natures would agree 
like fire and ice.” 

But now came the memory of the love to her, which 
his very violence had shown, — such love as she had 
never witnessed in any of her admirers before, nor 
might again, — that love whose force had borne so large 
a part in breaking through the bounds of his usual 
polished gentleness toward gentlewomen. And next 
came the fear that he had thought she scorned him for 
his poverty, — a scorn which Rosamond’s spirit would 
have loathed if she had been the heiress of Golconda. 
In short she was promptly forced to make up her mind, 
for peace’s sake, to forget the whole matter and get 
back into her everyday life again as fast as she could. 

In the first place she must see after Agnes, which 
she ought to have done before ; for Agnes had with- 
drawn herself from the family circle from the very be- 
ginning of the evening, — a most unusual occurrence. 
But she was not quite ready yet to face Agnes herself, 
and therefore rang for Mrs. Tibbets. 

Agnes however heard the bell, and therefore thought 
she might venture to go to Rosamond’s door ; as she 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


131 


had been longing to do for an hour, ever since she 
heard it open and shut. She threw herself into Rosa- 
mond’s arras exclaiming, “ Dearest, dearest Rosy, are 
you going — soon — to tell me some most precious 
news?” 

Rosamond shook her head. 

Agnes burst into tears ; when Rosamond at last 
fairly broke down and contributed a few of her own to 
the shower, — homoeopathic treatment of it which proba- 
bly checked it as speedily as any that she could have 
adopted. Agnes presently began to wipe her sister’s 
eyes and her own, and to coo out in a dove-like man- 
ner such consolations as occurred to her as applicable 
to the supposed state of the case. These resolved 
themselves chiefly into, “ Of course, darling, you could 
not have anybody you did not love ; and if poor Mr. 
Yernon was destined to be refused he could not be, 
by any one else, so gently and soothingly as by you.” 

Rosamond fondled her tenderly in return for her con- * 
dolences, but otherwise neither accepted nor rejected 
them. Perhaps if they did not comfort her much they 
amused her a little; for she was, in some respects, a 
genuine varium et mutabile, and into her odd compo- 
sition a perilous sense of the ludicrous largely entered. 
At any rate she could not, in the present position of 
affairs, make a clean shrift as to her own shortcomings 
without revealing Vernon’s. 


132 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

Vernon in the mean time had locked himself into, 
and Walter out of, his chamber, and was packing up 
his goods and chattels with a kind of fury. Soon after 
midnight he made a transit to his studio, there to con- 
tinue the same gloomy business. 

But as his foot pressed the threshold the beautiful 
eyes of Rosamond met his own across it, looking in 
all and more than all her glory and glee out of her pic- 
ture, — that picture that was to make them both and 
together immortal, — that picture that had been an infi- 
nite pride and joy to him yesterday, — that was a mad- 
dening mockery to him now, — that was to be to him 
but a memory and a blank for evermore. Let no man 
say he knows the bitterest page of human life, till he 
has read the history of men’s successes. To that pic- 
ture he had no right or title any more. It must go, — 
out of his sight, out of his heart, out of his life. 

He made two strides and stood before it. His knife 
was in his clutch. He would have stabbed it like a 
living thing; but something held his arm. He would 
have stabbed it, not as Rosamond Wentworth, — she 
would have been safe from him even then, — but be- 
cause he would not have his own work taunt and defy 
him so. He hurried from it and up and down the 
room. Again and again he stopped before it to rend 
and tear it from one end to the other, up and down, 
but did not; for something stopped him still. The 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


133 


night was waning ; and so was his strength. Some- 
thing must be done. Again he faced the picture ; but 
this time he threw his knife behind him as he came, 
and only turned it gently to the wall. 

Now he could work; and his work was soon done. 
The place was dismantled; — the paintings were un- 
hung, and the various implements hastily thrown 
together ready for removal. Then he stole back to 
his chamber, sat down, and wrote a graceful, if not 
cordial, note to Mr. Wentworth in acknowledgment 
of his hospitality, and requested his acceptance of the 
portrait. 

Then, when he regarded it as no more his own, he 
trusted himself with it again for one last look. The 
act of renunciation and self-mastery had in a measure 
calmed him, but only in small measure. He wrung 
his hands before his handiwork till the blood started 
from the nails. The tears that he shed before it were 
tears of gall. His passion was rising again. He 
dared not stay. There was no more need of his turn- 
ing the portrait to the wall now, — for he had no fur- 
ther business in the room ; — but he did so ; and one of 
the little gold bosses of the frame is broken off, and 
lodged in the plaster of the partition to this day. 

Then, utterly worn out in mind and body, he threw 
himself upon his bed without undressing and slept a 
dreary sleep with a drearier waking. 

Rosamond went out as soon as breakfast was over. 
Therefore she was not present when, immediately 
after, Vernon announced that circumstances obliged 
him to set out at once for the South. 

“I am concerned to hear it,” said Mr. Wentworth; 

12 


134 


AGNES WENTWORTH 


“but if we consult your pleasure rather than our own 
now, and speed the parting guest, I trust you will 
reward us by affording us an opportunity to welcome 
the coming guest, whenever you revisit New England.’’ 
The old Chesterfield shook hands, and bowed himself 
out. 

“ I wish you need not go, Ernest,” said Walter, sor- 
rowfully but not without a certain constraint. “ Why, 
the fever can’t be over yet, can it ?” 

“Thank you ; I don’t know. It makes no difference. 
I must get out of the country — back to Italy, I mean. 
I must see my mother before I go. Heaven knows 
when I shall see her again.” 

“ But, my dear fellow, you won’t really go straight 
to South Carolina at this time of year ! It is mad- 
ness.” 

“ It was madness to stay. I — I beg pardon; — I be- 
lieve I may visit Single on my way; — I had a letter 
from him last week; — and perhaps we may go to 
Niagara afterwards. Anything to kill time — that is, of 
course, till I can get really to work again. Say every- 
thing that is proper for me to the young ladies, if you 
please. I shall write to you, Wentworth. I will not 
try to thank you till this headache, that you see I have 
to-day, leaves me myself again.” 

“But, Ernest — but, dear old fellow!” cried Walter, 
hurrying after him to the door and laying a coaxing, 
detaining hand upon his shoulder, “ you are not going 
this minute, — to leave me in this way. Let me send 
John for your ticket and coach and so forth ; and come 
back and lie on the sofa for an hour, in the library. 
You shall have it quite to yourself, if you don’t want 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


135 


me. Rosamond is out ; but won’t you say good-bye 
to Agnes — before you go ?” 

It would have been a strange omission to go with- 
out that,” said Vernon to himself as he relented and 
returned ; and Walter went for Agnes and brought her. 

She came, pale and silent for pity and sorrow. 

Vernon too had little to say and, perhaps to excuse 
himself from saying more, offered and wrote her a letter 
of introduction to another painting-master. “You 
will go on, I trust, and see that my one pupil does 
me credit,” resumed he listlessly, as he gave it to her, 
trying in vain to manifest an interest which he did 
not feel. 

Agnes was chilled and disheartened, both by his 
sudden departure and by the manner of it. “ If I 
can,” answered she ; “but I am afraid that when I am 
a woman my duties may prevent me.” 

“ Duties to the pride of life, — morning-calls, dresses, 
and entertainments?” replied he cynically. “If I 
recollect right, it was not the sister who was careful 
and cumbered about much serving who received the 
commendation of the holiest lips. But I forget; I 
am instructed now that art is vanity like all the rest ; 
and so the old Worm has eaten out the core of the 
world.” 

Agnes looked wistfully and compassionately at him, 
and answered his misery rather than his words : “ Oh, 
Mr. Vernon, art is not vanity when it is consecrated 
art ; and there are so many who can be happy, for one 
who can be great ! You have within your reach the 
best that life has to offer.” 

“ God only knows why a life was given, so full of 


136 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


fruitless struggle and of hopeless pain.” Walter bad 
left him to make the arrangements for his journey ; and 
he spoke out his thought to her, as one whose proud 
fortitude seals his lips toward his equals will some- 
times open them to a baby or a dog. 

“It will not be ‘fruitless’ struggle,” returned Agnes 
with guileless confidence. 

“ You believe in me still, do you, and in — many 
things?” said he, fixing his dry, hollow eyes in his 
turn compassionately on her young, earnest face. 
“ Poor child ! — why should I talk in this way to you ? 
Well, believe in life while you can, and enjoy it if you 
can; and, if you can, keep yourself simple and gen- 
erous and kind. You have been very kind to me, 
‘ little sister,’ as Walter calls you. I hoped you would 
have been my little sister once, perhaps you know.” 

“ I hoped so too.” 

“In that case I think we could have loved one 
another. But all that is at an end. In my youth I 
dreamed a bad dream ; and it has come true to my 
manhood. I shall never see Boston again. I hope I 
shall hear of you, if you ever come to Italy.” 

He hoped it a little, out of regard for her, but very 
little, if at all, with regard to himself. He would 
have wished never again to hear the name of Went- 
worth. It was made all the more painful to him by 
the very thought of his ingratitude toward a family to 
whom, after all, he owed so much kindness. He 
shrank even from the idea of meeting any Americans 
after his return to Europe. He had longed with all 
the longings of a lover and a patriot to see his native 
country again; and she had had for him, — so at least 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


137 


he said to himself, -^no honor — no encouragement — no 
acknowledgment for the credit he had toiled to do her, — 
nothing but mortification, defeat, and despair. Even 
his lady-love had cheerfully sacrificed him to the dollar- 
worship of the land. 

Even as regarded his art, the clear, cold words of 
Rosamond had for the time — as he feared, for life — 
completely “demoralized him.” Kind-hearted and 
light-hearted as she was, she seemed strangely fated 
to darken all his days. He was no longer sustained 
against injustice and hardship by the sense of desert 
and of a lofty career. She had slain his faith in him- 
self ; and it threatened to be death to him both as an 
artist and as a man. Heaven help him, for the effects 
of such seasons do not pass away with their anguish I 
They are likely to stamp an abiding impression on the 
soul and the life. 


CHAPTER XX. 

When the door was fairly shut upon Yernon, and 
on Walter who went to see him off, Agnes took 
refuge in her own room and cried bitterly. “I never 
saw anybody so wretched in all my life,” thought she; 
“ and I can do nothing to comfort him. Oh, God com- 
fort him ! God seemed to answer my prayers for him 
before, when he was so ill.” Many mornings and 
evenings she prayed for him, until she was consoled 
12 * 


138 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


on his account with a conviction that he was in 
hands that would do for him the best that could be 
done. 

But meantime she was not without some youthful 
woes on her own account. After the society, gaiety, 
and new freedom that the summer had brought her, 
the prospect of a return to the old thraldom, monotony, 
and solitude of the winter seemed to her little less 
than appalling. She was silent on the subject, and 
submissive as usual; but Rosamond saw that some- 
thing was amiss, followed her to her chamber one day, 
and surprised her sitting on the floor with a wet face 
buried in her hands in the cushion of a chair. Agnes 
was promptly taken up and set on Rosamond’s knee, 
and soon had her secret squeezed out of her. 

“ When things are as bad as bad can be, you will 
always find, little dear, that is a sure sign they are 
going to be better,” said Rosamond trotting her. 
“You would like to leave school at any rate, I sup- 
pose ?” 

“ Rosy, shouldn’t I ?” 

“Very well ; I will speak to papa. And now what 
else should you like ?” 

“Why, to draw and paint, if papa would only please 
to let me take lessons of M. Dumont. It would not 
be so expensive as school ; and I should be learning 
something instead of nothing.” 

Rosamond spoke to papa and effected a compromise. 
Agnes might leave school and take painting-lessons, if 
she took lessons in modern languages likewise, first one 
and then another until she could speak as well as read 
ihree, if she would prepare herself to construe twenty 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


139 


lines" of Latin to him or to Walter every evening*, and 
if she would read twenty pages of history daily to her- 
self, looking for all the places mentioned, on the maps. 

If the conditions were hard, the prize was glorious. 
Rosamond was half stifled with caresses; and Agnes 
was happier than any autumn had ever seen her before, 
— with a happiness that not even her sister’s return to 
New York could destroy. Yernoii had done her a par- 
ticularly good turn in introducing to her, M. Dumont. 

Dumont, though an admirable copyist, was other- 
wise scarcely to be called an artist. Notwithstanding, 
— and partly for that very reason perhaps, — he was the 
very prince of teachers. He had a thorough knowledge 
of the mechanical processes of his art,, and of anatomy 
and perspective ; and he threw his whole strength into 
the progress of his pupils. While he had no imagina- 
tion to interfere with theirs, his taste was exquisite, 
and was always at their service. He was at once the 
kindest and the keenest of critics. He divined, as if 
by instinct, where each tyro’s strength and weakness 
lay, and saw how to make the most of the one and 
how to evade or get the better of the other. His disin- 
terested and unambitious industry kept him the hap- 
piest of men ; and the polished gaiety of his manners 
had a fascination which few could resist. Accordingly, 
he had cast a glamour over the dragons that kept many 
of the choicest galleries of Europe, and possessed, for the 
study of his scholars, a collection of fac-similes by his 
own hand, such as it needed a remarkably practised 
eye to distinguish from the originals of some of the 
greatest Italian and Dutch old masters. 

It was his hot republicanism that, after the coup 


140 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


d^etat, drove him to the United States. Nevertheless, 
with an inconsistency not very uncommon in republi- 
cans, he took especial comfort in the fact that his wife 
was a daughter of a younger branch of the old family 
of Montpensier. He never thought it necessary to ex- 
plain that he had rescued her, in an almost destitute 
condition, from a sorry pension in which she was half 
pupil, half under-teacher. He did think it necessary 
that now, at any rate, she should have all the silks 
and laces befitting her birth ; and the picturesque old 
grande dame, as half in play and half in pride he 
loved best to call her, established in state in the pleas, 
antest window with her parrot, her poodle, and her 
missal, was one of the most striking ornaments of his 
studio. 

What with the foreign language spoken there, the 
courtly master and mistress, and the pictures, Agnes’s 
lessons seemed to her like a bi-weekly trip to Europe. 
They were the chief pleasures that she had, for a longer 
time than she expected. 

The following summer did not bring her back her 
sister. Mrs. Van Rooselandt was ordered to try a voy- 
age for her health ; and Rosamond went with her to 
Baden-Baden. Walter took a long vacation in the 
Adirondacks. Even the Dumonts went somewhere 
out of town for July and August. Mr. Wentworth 
never passed a night out of his own house ; and his 
youngest daughter as usual shared his fate. 

Then she took refuge in the cool lower gallery of 
the Athenaeum, and drew from the statues. In that 
noiseless, white, calm society, wherein if there is no 
life there is at least no change nor death nor fear 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


141 


of any, she would lose herself so utterly in sight and 
thought that, if any one came in and spoke, she started 
like a deaf and dumb person suddenly quickened to the 
sense of hearing. When she left her seat for a mo- 
ment’s rest, she would steal to the window, let the 
soft, sunny, live air blow upon her face and, looking 
out upon the quiet, familiar graves of the Granary, 
compare the monuments of mortality before her with 
those monuments of immortality behind. She would 
ponder upon human life: — how transitory it was, 
yet what eternal footprints it might — or might not — 
leave upon the world. She would wonder whether, in 
the sight of God and of His angels, the marks left by 
beneficent though uncelebrated lives upon the lives 
and souls of succeeding generations were not, after all, 
the noblest footprints that could be left upon the world. 
Then she would wonder whether it might not be pos- 
sible to combine the two, — the noblest spiritual with 
the noblest intellectual life, — and whether at any rate 
this could be possible to a modern, an American, and 
a woman. 

Such ponderings and musings often went home with 
her, and kept her watching with them late into the 
night. She would question with herself what the 
talent was which God would one day demand of her 
with usury, — whether He would chide her as an un- 
profitable servant in that she did not consecrate her 
hands to such works as other women called only holy, 
— such works as Tabitha or Dorcas did. She would 
question next whether, if she should so devote them, — 
a martyrdom to her it would have been, — He might 
not on the cotitrary rebuke her in that, having been 


142 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


called, like Bezaleel the son of TJri and Aholiab the 
son of Ahisamach, to be filled with the spirit of God 
and understanding to devise curious works for the ser- 
vice of the sanctuary, she had turned from them to 
things that perish in the using. Thus when, during 
the day, she had prospered in her toil, it seemed to her 
a token of approbation from on high, and a word of 
command to go on in the path she had chosen. When 
on the contrary she had toiled in vain, it seemed to 
her excited fancy a sign of condemnation ; and then, 
with a sense of more than temporal failure, her heart 
wept tears of blood. Her life was a strange, dreamy, 
lonely, unearthly one for a girl to lead. 

In front of her little bed hung a copy of Guido’s 
head of the Saviour crowned with thorns. At this, 
with a feeling as if it were a religious service, her pa- 
tient hand and brain had wrought until they could find 
no more to do. Its “deep, pathetic eyes” looked into 
hers when they unclosed in the morning, as if appeal- 
ing to her to do something to make that divine face 
less sad, — something to soothe the sorrow of the long- 
suffering Christ for his followers still struggling after 
him on earth. 

Yet her father peremptorily forbade her having any- 
thing to do, in person, with the poor. She was sorry 
for this on his account, and sorry on her own, and per- 
plexed here again because, while she feared to disobey, 
she feared lest in obeying she was not obeying in the 
Lord. But here she found relief by the discovery, — as 
soon as she surmounted her diffidence enough to make 
it, — that every little drawing or painting that she ven- 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


143 


tured to offer was eagerly accepted and readily dis- 
posed of for charitable purposes. 

Thus, in a word, little Agnes was left to herself and 
to God. Her girlish mind was to be forced through 
much weakness, if at all, to struggle itself into strength. 
Her thoughts, unexpressed, accumulated and deep- 
ened. Her mind, hemmed in on every side, grew up- 
ward. Had she found without her at this period the 
sympathy and companionship she craved, she might 
possibly have developed (or undeveloped) into one of 
those soft, negative, dependent characters that hang 
like parasites, weak and weakening, all their lives on 
others. As it was, she might perhaps find her way 
out into the fulness of the benediction, “It is more 
blessed to give than to receive.’’ And so we leave her 
to make her way with little outward aid through the 
remainder of her early youth, — that enchanted time that 
we can all of us at least remember, when either joy or 
sorrow that fell to our lot seemed eternal, — when the 
years were so long, and there were to be so many of 
them. 


1 




144 


AGNES WENTWORTH, 


CHAPTER XXI. 

At last Agnes’s eighteenth birthday came, and a 
great change with it. Rosamond returned home to spend 
a whole winter. She had always promised herself that 
she should bring up the arrears of her domestic duties, 
when that time should arrive, by bringing out Agnes. 

But, somewhat to Rosamond’s dismay, Agnes was 
no sooner out than she wished to go in again: “Dear- 
est Rosy, do you really think I must keep on making 
calls and going to parties ? — I am so wearily bored at 
them ; and my cheeks ache so with having to smile at 
things that are not droll.” 

“The remedy rests with you, my sweet. Say some- 
thing yourself, that is droll and rest your cheeks and 
your neighbors’ with one good hearty laugh.” 

“ Do you even require me to jest on the rack, you 
ruthless tormentor?” 

“ Certainly ; do what you can for the good of society.” 

“ Why, that would be to stay at home ; for society, 
when I talk to it, usually looks as much bored as I 
feel.” 

“ Because you have had no practice yet in min- 
istering to its necessities. Fashionable society is a 
great baby: it wants to be skilfully played with, 
danced, and chattered to, by somebody that is fond of 
it and used to it.” 

“ If one only could get up fondness enough for grown- 
up childishness! It is very good fun sometimes to 


A GNIlS WLWT worth. 


145 


help discuss baby-houses and dolls with little pro- 
prietors ; but oh, Rosy, confess — are not you worn out 
sometimes with that endless vapid talk about grown- 
up houses, clothing, food, and furniture?” 

. “ I don’t hear much of it. I don’t yield the floor to 
it. Why should I, or you ? When other people don’t 
entertain me, I take a generous revenge by entertain- 
ing myself and them too.” 

“But it is all such a disappointment! I always 
hoped— I rather expected — that when I went into com- 
pany I should meet the characters one hears of^artists 
and authors and statesmen and all sorts of the people 
that are really worth seeing, in this State at least ; and 
I scarcely ever do — a single specimen.” 

“No; I should think there were fewer of them on 
exhibition here than even in New York. When they 
try going out, one by one, they are bored I dare say 
as you are. Agues, and they give it up as you wish to 
do ; and you see what comes of that. The field is 
more and more abandoned to the mere dressers and 
dancers; and so there is a great Chinese wall built up 
between intellect and fashion ; and both are the losers.” 

“ The fashionables are the losers, no doubt ; but are 
the geniuses, do you think ?” 

“Indeed I do. The tendency of genius is, to look 
queer ; the tendency of retired genius is, to look queerer. 
Besides, how can anybody paint or write ladies and 
gentlemen, who is unacquainted with ladies and gen- 
tlemen ?” 

“ Rosamond, 1 do not find you the most unpleasant 
of female lecturers. You have given me a better reason 
than I ever dreamed of before for my going out, — ex- 
13 


146 


AGNES WEN'l WORTH. 


cept, indeed, that papa wished it. That is an idea 
that ought to help me through a good deal of penance, 
— ^if I really must do it.’’ 

“Then will you reward me by not looking all this 
evening as if you were saying. Society is a beast ; and 
I wish it was dead ?” 

“I will try.” 

“ Good girl. Then I will impart to you another 
reason for doing as you are bid, and one quite from 
your own point of view, little angel.” 

“ ‘ Little’ ! — ‘ little’ now, my domineering elder ? 
Look in the glass.” 

“ ‘ Tall rose the spirit’s altering form, 

Till to the roof her stature grew,’ ” 

sang Rosamond and said, “ You are the tallest now, 
aren’t you ? Never mind ; the more there is of you 
the better. But do you remember what Wesley said 
about music ?” 

“ That it was not fair that Satan should have all 
the best tunes ?” 

“ Something like that. Well, in like manner I can- 
not see why Satan should have all the best-bred and 
best-looking people. Agnes, do you love that worthy 
woman whom Walter calls ‘ that old Tab’ ?” 

“ Miss McTab. I ought to like her.” 

“ Doubtless. Do you ?” 

“ Inquisitor, do you put me to the question ?” 

“I will give the wheel another turn; which do you 
like best, her or Miss Arden ?” 

“There is scarcely anybody else in this world — 
out of this house, there is nobody — that I like and 
love and admire so entirely as Clara Arden.” 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 14 ^ 

“ Then of course she is better than Miss McTab,’’ 
said Rosamond solemnly, 

“ I do not know, — I cannot say that.’’ 

“ISTor I either,” said Rosamond, relapsing into her 
usual manner, “I suppose each of them is doing her 
duty in her place, to the very utmost of her knowledge 
and power ; but Miss McTab is blunt and absent and 
stiff and awkward. She wears most reprehensible 
head-dresses, and puts them on in a manner which is 
a constant temptation to the mirth of the heathen ; — I 
can answer for one, I’m sure, and so could Watty 
if he were here, for another. But sweet. Clara ! — 
No matter, we both of us know her ; and nobody could 
describe her. Aunty’s sister-in-law, Mrs. Gulian Yan 
Rooselandt, of Fifth Avenue, is much such another 
golden saint. I leave you to judge for yourself, Agnes, 
whether one like them, or an image of a sister of the 
order of McTab, would be of the greatest efficacy in 
the position in life where heaven has placed you.” 

'‘You have given me a great deal to think about; 
and I will think about it,” said Agnes. Rosamond 
was answering some unspoken questions of conscience 
for her, and making her feel that she could try at all 
events to make herself agreeable, with a lighter heart. 

“ If you were like many girls, darling, and I loved 
you as I do now, I assure you I’d rather lock you up 
than bring you out ; but you can gain, and do, good 
and no harm by becoming more a woman of society.” 

“ But Rosamond, since we are having the matter 
out, perhaps I had better tell you one thing that does 
make it especially hard to me : hardly anybody seems 
glad to see me.” 


/ 

148 AGNES WENTWORTH. 

“ I know ; I usually feel that myself when I first 
come northward; it’s just as if one had done something 
one shouldn’t, and everybody had just found it out. 
But then 1 rise superior. It needs some cordiality and 
vivacity on one’s own part, at first, to break through 
the maiivaise honte of New England ; but that is all. 
It is a matter of give and take.” 

“If I were only like you,” — 

“You would be more popular than you will be? — • 
May-be so; but yet you might lose full as much as 
you gained I am liked by a good many people, I be- 
lieve, — a little. You will be liked, when you are 
known, very much, I am sure, by a few ; and they will 
be of the persons the very best worth pleasing. The 
best judges are wont to be in the minority. I do not 
suppose Bach was ever so popular as Strauss; but 
then I do not suppose Strauss ever threw any hearer 
into such heavenly rapture as Bach does. Common- 
place souls want show and sparkle ; ifs they cannot 
have diamonds, they will have paste. I do not ask 
you to be showy or sparkling, my own still, pure, 
white pearl. But you will be none the worse for being 
drawn out of your shell, and well set in the sight of 
those who can appreciate you.” 

“ When she said she was liked ‘ only a little,’ did 
she forget poor Mr. Yernon?” mused Agnes, “I 
hoped that, when I went into company, I should find 
some more acquaintances like him ” 

They heard from him now only by report; and the 
last story was that his father had died and left him a 
little property, and that he was likely to marry some 
Itsblian countess. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


149 


Moreover Agnes pondered silently over the othei 
things that her sister had said to her, and then as 
quietly acted upon them. There was much steadfast- 
ness in her nature but no stubbornness, — on the con 
trary a rare union of docility with steadfastness. 
Habit soon gave her ease in company. Besides, there 
is always something marvellously reassuring, in the 
sense of being perfectly well dressed ; and Rosamond 
devised all her costumes, which were simply and mod- 
estly exquisite. As Rosamond had prophesied, those 
who could appreciate her, did find her out. In the 
eye of the fashionable crowd, she bore not a moment’s 
comparison with her beautiful and brilliant elder; but 
to a few she was even more charming in her tender, 
moonlight, fair, ideal loveliness. 

A young genius is happy indeed, who has so helpful 
and considerate a guardian as Rosamond. “Art is 
your business ; society is mine,” she had the com- 
plaisance to say to her charge. She watched over the 
blossom-end of the artist’s day, the precious morning, 
and received and returned for Agnes many a visit 
which would have been a mere interruption to her, 
while she lost no opportunity of putting the solitary in 
the way of agreeable friendships or entertaining ac- 
quaintances. 

To her surprise, Agnes soon found that all the 
pleasant companionship and variety in her life, at home 
and abroad, cost her little at the easel ; especially as 
her sister, who meant to be handsome as long as she 
could, did not oppose her wish for, — comparatively 
speaking — early hours. Her mind seemed quickened 
rather than retarded by the change. She did nearly 
13 * 


150 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


as much as before, and better, in less time ; and a cer- 
tain crudity which up to this time had, in spite of her, 
weakened all her compositions, began. to wear off far 
more rapidly, as her knowledge of real life, and maturer 
life increased. And again the summer was her own. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

The next winter began in much the same way ; but 
it ended with the spring of 1861. On the nineteenth 
of April, the national soldiers were fired upon in Bal- 
timore. 

On the evening of that day, Rosamond had to go 
alone to her party. 

Walter did not, as she expected, meet her there. He 
came home earlier and paler than usual, with his blue 
eyes flashing strangely, and an expression more earnest 
and manly than Agnes had ever seen before in his boy- 
ish face. He found her by herself “ ranging,” as he 
told her afterwards, “ up and down the library, like a 
charger in a paddock within hearing of the drum.” 
He put his arm round her waist, kissed her forehead, 
and joined her in her walk. After a turn or two, he 
said gently, “Agnes, I am going.” 

She stopped him short, to stand before him and look 
him in the eyes and be sure that she understood. 

“Yes, I am going — lieutenant in the — th Massa- 
chusetts Volunteers — into camp to-morrow.” 

She threw her arms round his neck and kissed him 


A GJVES W ENT WOR TIL 


151 


on both cheeks. “You happy Walter! How glorious! 
Now, for the first time in my life, I know what it is to 
wish to be a man. But papa 

“ He made no objection. He got me my commission. 
He hoped it would make a man of me,” said Walter 
rather sadly. “ If I had taken more pains to consider 
the poor dear old gentleman’s likes and dislikes be- 
fore, it might be a little harder for him to let me take 
my own way now; some comfort in that. Well, we 
shall have come and seen and conquered by midsum- 
mer ; and meantime you’ll be better to him than twenty 
boys ; and you must write to me every week, and tell 
me how he does in every letter.” 

From this, they fell into talking of what Walter 
should, and should not, take with him into camp. 
Agnes accompanied him to his room to assist in his 
preparations ; but there was little conversation between 
them ; for the minds of both were preoccupied ; and 
she feared to interrupt him. 

“ I believe I have about all I want, now,” said he 
at midnight as, after rummaging his writing-desk, he 
came and looked over the assorted piles of various 
small articles, which she had appropriately laid out, 
upon his bed, in the neat little pattern of a United 
States flag. “ Papa is going to give me my uniform 
and sword and sash.” 

“ Would not you like some thread and needles?” 

“I should if there was any time for me to take sew- 
ing-lessons ; you have neglected my education, Agny. 
No, my dear, not to-night. Don’t do anything more. 
Go to bed, and rest yourself. It is not as if I was 
really leaving home yet, you know. I shall be all the 


152 


A ONES WEJVT WORTH. 


time coming and going till we march; and I rather 
think there will be plenty of chances for you and Rosy 
to come down to the Fort.” He kissed Agnes again; 
and, as she went down to her chamber, she could hear 
him whistling Yankee Doodle, and singing, 

‘ Father’n I went down to camp 
Along with Cap’n Good’n •, 

There we see the men an’ boys 
As thick as hasty-pud'n.’ ” 


The next morning he slept late, lest it might prove 
his last chance ; and, when he did make his appearance, 
he was all the more hurried. He flew out of the 
house finally with no special leave-taking but a prom- 
ise to come back, if he had time, before he went to his 
quarters; and he had not time. 

After this, Agnes saw him often indeed, but very 
seldom alone. At the camp, she and Rosamond were 
usually attended to by other young officers; and Wal- 
ter was usually in attendance on other girls. When 
he came home, — merry, mercurial, and apparently ex- 
hilarated by change, by the hope of adventure, and by 
a present way of living much more congenial to his tem- 
perament than the dull routine of the office, — he was 
full of camp-jokes and stories, and still always hurried 
and going to do something or to see somebody. His 
usually amiable manners were perhaps a shade more 
affectionate toward all his family, especially at each 
parting ; and there was a more cordial deference in the 
habitual respect he paid his father ; but his real sepa- 
ration from them all appeared to have begun with the 
first night he spent away from under their roof. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


153 


At last, on the very eve of bis march, Agnes said to 
him, “ Walter, it seems to me I have scarcely seen you 
since you joined the Volunteers.” 

“ Nor I you ; and now that I do see you, I am afraid 
you are looking too pale. The fact is, I have always 
been looking forward to a ‘good time coming,’ that 
didn’t come. We must look to another season for it 
now. I am going up for a last reconnoissance of my 
sky-parlor ; will you come too ? — I shall leave you 
‘residee le-gatoo,’ as the old lady said, of everything 
but the naughty novels.” 

She carried with her a little match-box which she 
had just given him for his cigars, and lighted his gas 
for him. To her eye, the room already began to wear 
a forlorn, stripped, forsaken aspect; not so to his, fresh 
from the bare barracks. 

“ Pleasant, isn’t it?” said he, pausing in the middle 
and looking lovingly all round. “A good many good 
times I’ve had here sooner or later. How jolly the old 
place did use to look, when Single and Vernon came 
up to smoke and sing college songs. 

“ ‘ Friends depart ; and Memory takes them’ 

Turn ti, turn ti, turn ti, turn. 

I hope I shall see Horace as we pass through New 
York, though, if I can only keep my loyal hands from 
peppering him for an abominable doughface. As for 
Ernest, I’m glad, from my heart, he’s safe in Italy. I 
must own, I should think it would call for Roman vir- 
tue enough to stock an average regiment and some- 
thing over, to put a dutiful, romantic fellow like him 
up to taking the right side against his own cantan- 


154 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


kerous fiearths and altars ; and yet, if he were here, I 
don’t see what else there would be for a man of honor 
to do. — Agnes,” resumed the young lieutenant, standing 
with his hands in his pockets before his book-case, and 
looking up and down, and from side to side, over the 
handsome backs of the volumes there, “ could you 
light another of your little matches and hold it here ? 
Confound it!” said he, as the match burned itself out 
in vain, “ I ought to have some sort of a book to take 
with me.” 

‘‘This?” asked Agnes, bringing him from the table 
a pretty little new volume of Balzac, with his paper- 
knife between the leaves. 

“ No — a — a — Testament or something. I thought I 
might have a prayer-book here My pocket-Bible got 
out of sight somehow when I moved in from Cambridge ; 
and while I was in the land of Bibles it didn’t so much 
signify.” 

Agnes ran down and brought him her own little 
French New Testament. “There are some of my 
marks in it,” said she, — “only dates though, and little 
flowers and arabesques and angels in the margin, by 
the side of texts I was fond of. Do you object to 
those ?” 

“I shall like it all the better; but do you like to give 
it to me ?” 

“ Indeed I do.” 

“Your name is in it? — yes. Now will you put in 
mine? Here is some ink; I suppose it may as well be 
thrown out to-morrow.” 

While Agnes was finishing the inscription to “Wal- 
ter Clifford Wentworth, Mass. Vol., 1861,” she said 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


155 


in a low tone, with those infantine lips of hers that 
claimed the privilege of childhood for all they uttered, 
“Dearest Watty, you will read in it every day while 
you are gone, if you can, will you not 

As she gave it up, their eyes met. He kissed it, and 
answered, “I will.” 

“ It is going where I wish I were going, — with you.” 

He did not reply at once. He seemed to be absorbed 
in the care with which he bestowed the little book in 
the breast of his blue uniform coat. Then he took both 
her cheeks in his hands ; and, standing up with bis 
new military uprightness, and looking earnestly and 
wistfully into her face, he said, “Whatever I may be 
going to, my dear, I think it may be a comfort to you 
to know and to remember one thing ; and that is, that 
I went believing I ought to go, and that, for once, 
I left you all for my duty quite as much as my pleas- 
ure.” 

Before she could answer, he was gone. 


156 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

In the autumn of that year, Ernest Yernon again, 
haggard and hurried and just from the sea, rang at Mr. 
Wentworth’s door. Nurse opened it ; and he asked if 
Mr. Walter was at home. 

“Yes, sir, 1 guess so; ef you’ll please walk in. I’ll 
see. ” She ushered him to the library, looked in and, 
apparently finding it empty, repeated, “Walk in, sir; 
I’ll see,” and passed on toward the next story. 

Yernon entered, and had reached the middle of the 
strangely familiar and unfamiliar room before he be- 
came aware of the presence of a tall female figure, — a 
perfect pyramid of black, — sitting with its back to him 
and its head bowed over something it was doing at a 
table in Agnes’s alcove. 

As he paused, it roused itself a little, gave a deep 
sigh, and said abstractedly, “Remember, John, Miss 
Wentworth is out; and if any one calls, I am engaged.” 

“I beg your pardon,” said Yernon, about to with- 
draw ; but the lady at the sound of his voice, started, 
turned, rose, and began to come swiftly towards him ; 
and it seemed to him that he beheld the very ghost of 
Agnes Wentworth, wasted, mute, breathless, pale, and 
growing paler at every wavering step. “ Her father 
must have died !” thought he. “I am afraid you are 
not well enough for visitors, and I must have startled 
you very disagreeably,” said he, with more sympathy 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


157 


and concern in his manner than he dared put into his 
words; “ Where is Walter?” 

At the word she sank helplessly down into the arm- 
chair that he was placing for her and leaning back, 
covered her face with her thin hands, only repeating in 
an inward, agonized tone, “‘Where is Walter?’ — Oh, 
merciful God, where is Walter ?” 

As Yernon stood beside her, utterly shocked and 
confounded, and knowing neither whether to stay nor 
how to leave her, his eye turned involuntarily to fall 
upon the large outline drawing she had left. It repre- 
sented a battle-field, apparently abandoned after a 
sharp engagement, sti’ewn with dismounted cannon 
and other weapons and bodies of men and horses. On 
the left, a file of fiends were dimly seen climbing up 
through the transparent earth to seize their prey. On 
the right, a wreath of angels wound their way down 
through the clouds to the rescue. In the midst, upon 
the torn and trampled tUrf lay the lovely, lifeless form 
and face of — could it be ? yes — Walter Wentworth, 
fixed in the centre of an awful doubt ! His counte- 
nance was upturned appealingly toward heaven ; and 
his sword held fast to his breast. His rigid hands 
were clasped upon it in the attitude of prayer. 

“ Where is he ?” exclaimed Agnes again, casting up 
her hollow eyes to Yernon in an agony of scrutiny 
and entreaty. “Oh, Mr. Yernon, you should know; 
you were always together ; you knew him better 
than I.” ^ 

“ But I know nothing ; I am but just on shore. Mer- 
ciful heaven, you do not mean — ! He has gone to 
the war perhaps ; and you are anxious about him ; 

14 


158 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


that is all, is it not?” cried Yernon, in an agony of sus- 
pense in his turn. 

“‘Anxious’? — yes! — Oh no, that is not all! — Oh, 
Mr. Yernon, Mr. Yernon ! — Last week there was a 
hearse at our gate ; and that was all of sweet, merry 
Walter that will ever come home any more!” Her 
tearless face worked miserably. 

Yernon was utterly overwhelmed; and the sight of 
his distress did more than any soothing could have 
done, to rouse her out of the morbid condition into 
which she had been falling. “I have been cruel,” 
moaned she. “ It was not a piece of news to be told 
suddenly to any one who loved him. See, I am cry- 
ing for you ; and that is more than I could do for my- 
self. I have even thought sometimes, I was turning 
into a stone figure for his monument ; but your tears 
are thawing and softening me. Do not let them do so. 
I would rather be fixed forever praying upon his tomb.” 

“My dear,” said Yernon, adapting his words to her 
state while a common woe was bridging over the long 
void between them, “he would not have you in this 
despair. Walter always loved you, and loved to have 
his friends happy. Do you not believe that he is 
happy now? See,” he continued, pointing to the draw- 
ing, “the angels are nearer to him than the fiends; 
and in my heart I believe that, even in his most thought- 
less moments, they always were so.” 

“Do you? — do you believe it? You always were 
an honorable man. You would not say what you did 
not believe. But when Sunday came, I went to church. 
They begged me not; but I begged them harder to let 
me go, for I thought, if there was any comfort, I should 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


159 


find it there ; I thought there might be some there, — 
there ought to be — for every one who came there with 
a broken heart to seek it. I am sure the preacher 
must have spoken it to me, if he had had any to speak; 
for he is a good man. But he had no word of hope for 
me, — only a warning for other — thoughtless — youths, 
from Walter’s doom.” 

“Young men often are less thoughtless than they 
seem,” said Yernon. “ They do some things that seem, 
and are, unfit, under an inward protest which, if their 
hearts are in the main sound and true, gains more and 
more outward power over them as life goes on.” 

“‘Life’! — oh yes,” murmured Agnes to herself; 
“ while there is life there is hope.” 

“And when life is over,” said Yernon, — in his long- 
ing to comfort her appealing to her faith from his own 
aching want of any, — “is not the soul in better hands 
than ours?” 

“ ‘ In better’ ? — yes. — In safer — for him ? — I would 
die to know. But no, I must not die ; ‘ The effectual, 
fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much ;’ — may it 
not even avail the dead ? We must live to be righteous 
and to pray for him.” 

“But are you sure that he was — ‘thoughtless’ — to 
the end ? — My dear friend, — my dearest friend’s sister, 
— you see and must feel that your sorrow is mine ? 
Does it increase your suffering to talk of him with me ?” 

“No indeed; but one of the bitterest things I have 
to tell is, that I have so little.” She paused and 
seemed struggling to regain more of her self-command. 

“ There was a deep reserve, I am inclined to think,” 
said Yernon soothingly, to give her time, “under all 


160 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


Walter’s careless outer frankness. The weeds floated 
on the top, where anybody might see them; but there 
might be gems beneath that no one had more than a 
glimpse of.” 

“I am afraid he had some presentiment of how it 
was to be, and would have talked with me, and could 
not because I was so stupidly unconscious. — It was 
strange ; it was as if I were under some witchcraft. 
Death had never come home to us before. I did not 
connect the thought with him. Who could ? He had 
been so full of life, — those last few "vveeks especially I 
It seems to me often now as if, when he wanted me to 
listen to his last words, I had turned away singing 
from his death-bed. I was sorry to part with him ; 
but I supposed till the last that he was glad to go. 
His look, that last night, comes back to me whenever 
I shut my eyes to try to sleep, — so sweet and sad and 
wistful, — as if he had forever things that he longs to 
say, and I, to hear ; but now Death has come between 
us and made him as dumb as I was deaf. — He did tell 
me then, he went because he thought it his duty.” 

“That, from Walter, was as much as a thousand pro- 
testations from a man more given to them. Is it too 
painful for you to tell me — w^hat you have heard since? ” 

“We have had a letter from his colonel since the 
telegram, — a short, hurried letter; — he had others 
like it to write. He said Walter was — 'honorable and 
brave’ — 'a favorite with all.’ He was ‘fighting gal- 
lantly.’ ‘ He was left mortally wounded — on the field — 
in an advance.’ — When they found him again the next 
day, — he was dead.” She broke off again, and returned 
to and from the table at which she had been sitting. 


A GNEFf WENTWORTH. 


161 


“ They found this with him,” added she, holding out 
to Yernon a little volume open at the fly-leaf. 

Beneath the names of herself and her brother, there 
was a deep, dark stain ; and still below, irregularly 
traced in pencil, another inscription : 

“I’ve read your book, darling. I wish I’d read it 

more. My love to my f Pray for me. 

“W. C. W.” 

An evident attempt had been made, as if by an 
afterthought, to write another line ; but it was hope- 
lessly illegible. 

Yernon returned the book in silence, and held out 
his hand to take leave. He could bear no more. It 
was to him as if the human race was divided between 
the dying and the dead. Agnes looked as if her days 
were numbered. He was not enough master of him- 
self to soothe her as he would thankfully have done ; 
and he feared the effect upon her failing strength of 
such, and especially so unforeseen, an interview. 

She smiled faintly with a touching effort at self- 
recollection: “Poor classmate, this has not been such 
a welcome as he would have given you, — as he 
would have had us give you. But you will come 
again ? — You will be sure to come again ?” 

“ If I may. — If it does not hurt you.” 

“It is rather as if you brought something of /awi 
back, still lingering about you.” 

As Yernon tottered down the stairs, he heard 
through, the silent house, — with such a start as if it 
had been Walter’s voice, — the sound of a latch-key in 
the door. 

But it was Rosamond who came in. How little he 
14 * 


162 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


dreamed, when they parted so few years before, that 
they should ever meet there again and meet with such 
friendliness. His long anger against her had yielded 
now to grief for her brother and pity for her, and to 
other emotions still, and none of them less gloomy. 
For as, — when men know that they are about to die, 
— with their hopes and longings, their animosities die 
before them, so it was with him He loved his coun- 
try so, that when he saw her, as he thought, upon the 
point of suicide, this world seemed for him too at an 
end. 

Poor Rosamond was indeed not looking well. Her 
brilliancy seemed quenched in her deep mourning; 
and her features wore an expression not merely of mel- 
ancholy but of care and chagrin. She greeted him 
with her usual self-possession, though with more than 
her usual gentleness. She was touched by the asso- 
ciations called up by him with Walter, but much pre- 
occupied with her own anxieties, — at the moment 
especially for her sister. “You have seen no one I 
am afraid, Mr. Yernon.” 

“I saw Miss Agnes. How long has she been ill?” 

“Only since — about a week.” 

“ Is it possible ?” 

“Yes, poor child I You know what they were to 
each other. No food, — no sleep, — no tears, — no words, 
I may almost say*; — no wonder she is little more than 
the ghost of herself. Her physician gives us every en- 
couragement to think that the — affection is only a su- 
perficial one, and that her youth and constitution will 
soon carry her safe through. Hid she talk with you ?” 

“ Yes ; but I was not in the least aware of — of being 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


163 


guilty of such an intrusion. I asked for — made the 
usual inquiry of your housekeeper at the door.” 

“Poor old nurse, — she has taken a heavy cold ; she 
is much too deaf just now to go to the door.” 

“I earnestly hope that the mistake has done no 
harm.” 

“No, believe me, it is quite as likely to have done 
my sister good, if it roused her. Anything would be 
better than that stony stillness. Do not regret it. 
Indeed — except for the shock it must have given you 
— I do not.” She gave him her hand cordially and in- 
vited him to repeat his visit, but did not to prolong it ; 
and he was eager to go, though it was only to a dreary 
chamber in a hotel. 

The last earthly stay seemed to him now to have 
been struck from beneath him. His life, since his 
return to Italy, had been utterly unsatisfactory and 
often utterly wretched. With the self-confidence 
which Rosamond in private, far more than the critics 
in public, had killed, his energies appeared to be struck 
dead. Yet because he was after all one of those few 
artists who are born, not made, he could not, as he 
often wished to do, forsake his art. Thus he kept on, 
limping and halting, in the course where only the fleetest 
runners can hope to reach the goal before hasty Death 
proclaims his “Time’s up!” He was regarded, and 
he knew it, as a painter whose early spring had hur- 
ried forward into an early blight, and as a man, who 
was growing, year by year, more and more unpracti- 
cal, impracticable, morbid, and cankered. 

When the war broke out he wished to die, and to die 
a death nobler than his life had been. But the rebellion 


164 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


had swept into it all his kindred. His mother especially 
wrote him hideous letters; and he had been out of the 
Southern atmosphere too long to have his own heart 
fired with its fever, agonizingly though he pitied its 
ravings in her and in others. Other men went home 
before they took their final part, to say last words and 
hear last God-speeds ; and there was no home left open 
to him but the once gay and hospitable home of the 
Wentworths. To that home then, as to a last resort, 
he had betaken himself and found it desolate. 


CHAPTER XXIY. 

Rosamond hastened to Agnes. She found her 
stretched on the library-sofa with her face hidden. 
Kneeling at her side, and gently drawing her handker- 
chief away, she discovered that her icy rigidity was 
melting down in a warm, refreshing rain of natural 
tears. Rosamond drew her gently into her arms and 
wept with her. 

Agnes returned her caresses, but offered no account 
of what had passed ; nor did her sister question her 
about it. Rosamond was satisfied with seeing that, in 
some way or other, it had at once aroused and soothed 
Agnes and restored her to something like herself. She 
took a little food when it was next brought her, with- 
out unwillingness, and then slept for some hours. 
Only when she waked, she said anxiously, “ Mr. Yer- 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


165 


non has been here and promised to come again. When 
he does, I wish exceedingly to see him.’’ 

“Certainly; I will give particular directions,” said 
Rosamond. 

The fact was, that Agnes had told no one the dread- 
ful secret of her apprehensions with regard to that 
future, which had now become Walter’s present, state 
until it was surprised out of her by his friend. The 
confession, with his reception of it, had in a measure 
relieved her; but she was now shocked at having made 
it, and eager to explain it away as far as she could ; 
and even this solicitude was helping to restore the bal- 
ance of her mind, by recalling her attention a little to 
outward things. 

The next morning, as she lay again on the sofa, a 
bunch of hot-house flowers was brought her. They 
were fragrant, and delicate rather than brilliant in their 
hues, but had no culled white ghastliness to remind her 
of those laid upon her brother’s coffin. Flowers had a 
peculiar effect upon the very peculiar temperament of 
Agnes. She loved them reverently as sacred gifts, 
fresh within a few hours from the last touches of the 
Maker. They seemed now to have been sent to her, 
in the time of her sorest need, to refresh her inmost 
soul. She raised herself, stretched out her burning 
hands for them, and buried her face in their cool per- 
fume with no thought beyond. 

“Who sent them, John?” asked the more practical 
Rosamond. 

“ Mr. V'ernon, Miss ; he brought them.” 

“ Oh, did not you ask him to come in ?” 

“ I did. Miss ; but he wouldn’t come no higher than 


166 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


the hall, not till he’d ascertain were the ladies at 
home.” 

“ Ask him if he will please to walk up. Agnes dear, 
I’ll go and send nurse to you now, shall I ? — and come 
back myself by and by. — They will talk over old times 
with less constraint without me ; and, as for me, I can- 
not bear to be so reminded of poor Walter,” continued 
she to herself. “What a pity and mistake it was, he 
ever went to the war !” 

As Agnes rose to receive her guest, she exclaimed, 
“ Mr. Yernon, I hardly thought an hour ago that any- 
thing would ever again give me any pleasure ; but these 
have done it.” She held up the flowers : “ How could 
you know that they would do me good ?” 

“I supposed you were fond of them, because I recol- 
lected how often you used to bring them to me, when 
you were a child, and it was my turn to be ill upon 
that sofa.” 

“Did I ? — Those were very old times. It seems to 
me as if you were telling me stories of somebody else,” 
said Agnes, with that sad feeling of broken and lost 
identity which is wont to be one of the attendant trials 
of every heavy trial. “ It was very kind of you to re- 
member.” 

“ In that way, at least, I have been kinder than I 
have seemed.” 

“ But oh, I must not let any of your kindness make 
me forget what I most wished to see you for ! — Mr. 
Yernon, the other day — yesterday — you know, perhaps, 
I had not been well ; and I was surprised into saying 
things that, in a calmer moment, I should not have said 
even to you — even to my sister. You will not — will 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


167 


you? — put any construction upon them— unfavorable 
to Walter’s dear memory. Indeed, indeed I meant only 
that he was not — might not be — what is called by 
stricter people a religious man!” 

“ My poor child, I took what you said, just as you 
meant it. I am sure that Walter was not the man ever 
to appear to his sister in a less favorable light than he 
did to his friend; and what a dear, constant, hearty 
friend he was ! You blame yourself — you, who were 
always all devotion to him — because your inexperience 
and unconsciousness possibly prevented him from ex- 
plaining freely to you his feelings and his danger. What 
could he have thought of me for letting our correspond- 
ence languish as it did, till it died at last of my own 
neglect?” 

“Nothing unkind; — he thought nothing unkind, be 
sure. He spoke of you the — the last time he spoke to 
me.” 

“ Did he ? Did he ? — W'hat did he say, sweet fellow ?” 

Agnes in substance repeated it. 

Vernon shook his head sadly: “I have lost in him 
then even more than I knew. How could I expect any 
Northern man to say that? He recognized the real diffi- 
culty in the case, laying hold of the heart even where 
the mind is true. That was genuine sympathy, such 
as does one’s heart good. Single’s is false, and can only 
do harm.” 

“ Walter spoke of Mr. Single too. He hoped to see 
him in passing through New York ; but he was at his 
villa,” 

Vernon did not hear. His thoughts had reverted to 
Walter. “ It is a voice calling me from the grave,” 


168 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


murmured he; “we may be comrades there again, 
though not in the tent.” 

“ God forbid !” cried Agnes with a shudder. 

“Because I am not fit to die ?” said Vernon, starting 
and turning his bloodshot eyes upon her. “ It may be 
so ; but what if I were not fit to live ? — My child, not 
for my salvation would I say one word to shake your 
faith ; but faith has never been vouchsafed to me. Catho- 
lic Italy is no place to learn it in, for a man who thinks 
and who believes in virtue. There are some saints, 
however, in whose intercession I believe, so far as I be- 
lieve in anything; therefore, while I fight for you, pray 
for me, if you will, that in heaven’s own time I may 
become a Christian soul. But, in the mean time, I know 
no other path to God so sure as that which Walter 
took, — to follow, held back by no private fears, that 
which a man believes to be his duty ; — heaven knows 
whether that is an easy path or not,” added he in an 
undertone, “when it runs between his country and his 
mother.” 

“ It is not for me to reproach any one for want of 
faith,” returned Agnes softly. “Even if I were a Phari- 
see be'ibre, the last week at least has taught me that 
a cord, which seems very strong while we only want 
it to guide us up a gentle slope, with loving hands near 
to support us if we flag, may strain and crack if the 
earth suddenly gives way beneath our feet and leaves 
us dependent on that one stay alone. I ought not to — 
I must not — make any brave man’s duty harder to him ; 
but oh, God preserve your sisters from ever feeling that 
which I have felt I” 

“ There is no one to feel that for me,” said he with a 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


169 


sigh. — “I have been almost entirely away from home 
for fifteen years, you know,” he added quickly. 

Agnes respected his reserve ; and no further allusion 
was made to his home. To fill a pause which she could 
not fill otherwise, she rose and rang for water for her 
flowers. Then he joined her in working that spell which 
loving memories cast over departed spirits, to raise them 
for a little while in dim, dear vision from the dead. 
They recounted to each other many things which they, 
together or apart, had enjoyed in Walter’s company, till 
they almost forgot their grieving for the present, to 
smile over the past. 

Finally Rosamond appeared ; and the conversation 
became general. 

A few days after, Vernon brought them a letter to 
read, which gave Agnes more definite comfort than any- 
thing before had done. It was in answer to one 
which, without her knowledge, he had written to 
another old class-maoe in the — th Massachusetts re- 
giment, begging in general terms, for any further par- 
ticulars which could be obtained of the last days and 
hours of their friend. 

That fine, warm-hearted, manly letter of Captain 
g * * * ’g jg before me now, and does so much credit to 
the writer as well as to the subject, that I would gladly 
insert it entire if I could without violating the sanctity 
of private correspondence. It describes Walter as “a 
model soldier,” throwing himself from the outset with 
thorough fidelity into all his duties, mastering his natu- 
ral and habitual love of ease and pleasure, laughing 
at hardships, murmuring at no delays or disapp< mt- 
ments, subordinate to his superiors, and remarkable for 
15 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


no 

his power of gaining the affection while maintaining the 
discipline of his men. “ He was the life of the mess, 
but always in such a way as if a lady might have been 
at his elbow.” In some respects, indeed, there was a 
staidness about him which rather surprised Captain 
S * * * ; but, to be sure, he had been out of town and 
scarcely seen Wentworth between camp and college ; 
and he had had time to alter. For instance, he had a 
habit of keeping himself to himself as much as he could 
of a Sunday, in the morning; in the afternoon, he usu- 
ally went to the hospital and read to, or wrote for, any 
one who needed it ; and in the evening of that day he 
could seldom be induced to join in anything more frolic- 
some than a quiet chat. 

Further, Captain g * ♦ * had lately fallen in with a 
wounded corporal of another regiment, apparently a 
very kindly, steady, trusty fellow. He had lain on the 
field near a commissioned officer, who, from various 
circumstances which he mentioned, was no doubt Wal- 
ter, from the time of his fall to that of his death. He 
appeared worn out with previous fatigue, — as Walter 
must have been, — and slept a good deal. When he 
woke, he seemed to suffer little but from thirst; and as 
his companion was able to reach a brook, which ran 
hard by, he had water whenever he wanted it. He 
scarcely spoke ; but he gave his handkerchief to the 
corporal, with a sign that he was to bind up his own 
bleeding arm with it, and managed to make him un- 
derstand that he should divide the contents of the 
stranger’s brandy-flask with those of the wounded near 
them who appeared the faintest. The handkerchief had 
been taken from the man’s arm, the first time it was 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


171 


dressed, and lost; but it was wrought in one corner, 
he remembered, with a figure something like this : 
(Agnes recognized the skeleton of the monogram, 
which she herself had designed and embroidered for 
Walter.) He died about three o’clock, “ ‘just stopped 
breathing, without any sort of a struggle.’” This last 
the man was certain of ; for the moon was full, clear, 
and high ; and, as his arm hurt him very much just 
then, he was sitting up, watching and envying the 
sleeper. 

“His own sweet self to the last,” said Vernon, as 
Agnes folded up the letter. “ What wonder that not 
even Death could deal otherwise than gently with 
him ?” 

Agnes felt the covert comfort in the words ; but she 
could not answer them. Completely overcome once 
more, she could only press his hand and leave the 
room to weep her fill over the precious pages. But 
henceforth, whatever her grief for her brother might 
be, it was no more despair. 


172 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

Nature, — in Agues essentially healthful nature, — 
reasserted its rights. She became more like herself day 
by day; but it was outwardly still, in many respects, 
a new self to the old friend of the family. Vernon 
was alternately charmed to see _the loveliness and 
grace into which the plain, shy, and unformed though 
always refined, school-girl he left behind had developed, 
and inclined to be alarmed lest the external polish must 
have endangered the simplicity within; for some of 
the most finished men and women in the world seem 
to be inspired with unaccountable suspicion by the 
elegance of others. His alarm was not abiding. 

But as her equanimity returned, he stood in more 
and more need of all of it which she, in her turn, could 
impart to him. It is a very hard thing, when one has 
made up his own mind to do a hard duty, to have all 
sorts of unexpected external hinderances and delays 
come in his way. The bravest man of any sensibility, 
who has a severe operation to undergo, will suffer a 
good deal of pain besides that of the knife, if he has to 
wait an extra hour for an unpunctual surgeon. Ver- 
non asked no better than to do his duty and to meet his 
fate ; but his duty was hard, and his fate held aloof. 
He found the utmost difficulty in obtaining even a lieu- 
tenant’s commission. He had never been, nor en- 
deavored to be popular, and had accordingly, and 
especially after his years spent abroad, very few 
friends at the North. Of these few, he had too much 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 173 

delicacy to apply to Mr. Wentworth. The poor old 
man, he thought, had been too much shaken by finding 
out a death-warrant in the commission of his only son, 
to be applied to, to obtain one for the friend of his son. 
Single, on the other hand, had written Vernon, before 
he left Italy, what he described as ''an atrocious let- 
ter,” and had been answered in a manner to put a stop 
to further communication between them for some time ; 
for if Vernon pitied Southern, he execrated Northern, 
disloyalty; and well he might; for to the encourage- 
ment held out by Northern disloyalty he attributed 
half the misfortunes of the unhappy South. 

Meanwhile, where strangers were concerned, there 
were mutual causes enough for distrust and dissatis- 
faction. At a period when officer after officer in our 
regular army, regularly sworn in to the support of the 
national government, was turning his sword against 
the government, it might well seem a questionable 
thing to our authorities to give over the command of 
New England men to an unknown South Carolinian. 
On the other hand, our South Carolinian himself knew 
that such independent, solitary, suicidal loyalty as his, 
was not of the commonest growth even on New Eng- 
land’s soil. 

"At home I might have had an eagle, or a star even, 
for the asking, and taken the field with my mother’s 
blessing instead of her curse !” broke from him bitterly 
one day, as he stood in a window of Mr. Wentworth’s 
library looking gloomily out over the bleak graves. 

He had not heard the light step entering behind him. 
‘"Her curse’!” repeated Agnes’s low, horror-struck 
voice. 

15 * 


174 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“ I am sorry that it is not in my power to take back 
the words,” said he, starting and turning toward her 
with a dark flush mantling to his very brow. ‘‘ 1 am 
doubly sorry, since 3mu have heard them.” 

“Well might dear Walter say, there was no loyalty 
like Southern loyalty,” thought Agnes. “ I am sorry 
that I came upon you so at unawares,” said she, hur- 
rying away from the shocking subject; “I am afraid 
you have met with ill success again to-day.” 

“ The same as ^^esterday, and as I shall meet, I be- 
gin to believe, to-morrow and to-morrow and to-mor- 
row I” 

“ It is very hard, — seems very unjust — to us who 
know you.” 

“I begin to think I may have excited suspicion by 
my efforts after a place in some regiment intended for 
the Southeast.” 

“ Did you — could you — seek that ?” 

“ I could and did ; and it will seem to you, as it did 
to me, that there was no very heinous treason in plot- 
ting to protect my mother and my sisters in captivity 
after helping to overcome my brothers and earliest 
comrades on the field.” 

“No indeed 1 — If you were only known!” 

“ There really does appear to be nothing left for me, 
but to go to try my luck at Washington, and, if that 
fails, to enlist as a private soldier.” 

“Oh, Mr. Vernon, I hope you will never do that! 

at least without mature consideration. Mr. Single 
was here one evening last autumn ; and the conversa- 
tion turned upon gentlemen’s entering the ranks. He 
disapproved of it, of course, utterly; and Rosamond 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


175 


told him it was like casting balls out of gold, and 
mounting cannon on ebony and ivory. Dr. Arden 
was here too ; and he agreed — in part, though he did 
draw a distinction. ‘If young Dives,’ he said, ‘hap- 
pens to have his head knocked off, his dividends will do 
as much good without it as with it, in the world ; but 
the heads of scholars and thinkers aren’t quite so easily 
to be spared or replaced.’ ” 

“And what said Mr. Single to that ?” 

“ I believe,” said Agnes demurely, “ he took the 
last half of the sentence for his share, and was too 
much gratified with its appropriateness to remember 
the other. I am afraid that was just what Dr. Arden 
meant he should do, besides ; for he gave me such a 
look that I could scarcely keep my countenance.” 

“I was afraid Miss Wentworth might think it rather 
Quixotic to serve in any capacity.” 

“He sees into that, does he ?” thought Agnes; “and 
still he can go on, dispensing so calmly with her sym- 
pathy ! Then it must be as I thought before, that he 
has caught her own indifference, and his old feeling 
for her is dead and buried too deep for resurrection.” 
“Poor Rosamond!” answered she. “It is a matter 
about which she feels more than she thinks. This war 
has overshadowed all her gay, happy life so drearily.” 

“ More than yours ?” asked he, fixing his eyes on her 
with an expression of compassion which might be 
meant either for her or for Rosamond. 

“ Oh no, nor yet so much as yours, but still very 
sadly. Our cousin, Egmont Van Rooselandt, grew up 
with her somewhat as Walter did with me. He died 
last summer of a fever, on the Potomac ; and the shock 


176 


A GJVFS WENT WOR TH. 


killed his mother, who was like a mother to Rosauioiid. 
Then she was obliged to leave New York; and I am 
afraid, though she is too kind to complain of it to me, 
that the change must be a most depressing one to her, 
especially at such a time as this. Boston has always 
been a fear to her; now, it is a fate. Mr. Vernon, — 
you have not quite decided, have you, on going to 
Washington?” 

“I think so ; why?” 

‘'Because something else occurs to me, which you 
might like to do, if you should still be unable to obtain 
the command you wished; and oh, Mr. Vernon, sup- 
posing that you could obtain it, could we require of you 
— could your own conscience require of you — to run 
such an awful risk of staining your sword literally with 
the blood of a brother? Would not such Roman vir- 
tue be too Roman to be virtuous?” 

“ It is very generous of you to renounce it.” 

“ But I do not renounce ; I only raise the question. 
Perhaps I go too far in doing even that. If you had 

been already in the service when the reb the war 

broke out, I see that it could have been no question 
at all ; but now, — in your eagerness to reach the mark, 
may you not rush beyond it?” 

“Perhaps so; that is one of the doubts that have 
made me, at least for the last two or three months, — up 
to the last two or three weeks, — impatient for the end 
of all — doubts. But you were going to speak of some 
alternative.” 

“ Such an alternative that I might scarcely dare pro- 
pose it, to any one not capable of preferring glory to 
renown ; for very glorious I think it might be, but 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


177 


very few will call it so ; and it would be hard and, for 
your comfort,” added she forcing a sad smile, “ not by 
any means without its dangers.” 

“ I long to hear.” 

“ I have heard that the ambulances are very ill- 
served, and scarcely commanded at all. The drivers 
are said to be often men of mutinous and desperate 
character ; and their poor passengers, to be sometimes 
cruelly neglected or treated; — the wounded,” — a 
thought of Walter was blanching her delicate cheek as 
she, with difficulty, spoke the words, — “ needlessly left 
to die. It struck me that if a man of courage and 
energy should obtain the command of one of the trains, 
he could be of incalculable service to our countrymen, 
— friends and foes.” 

“ I thank you for the idea. — I see that much might 
be made of it. — I like it more and more. Do any fur- 
ther suggestions occur to you ?” 

“ Only that perhaps you may think it best, if stran- 
gers to you Avill be so suspicious of you, to say nothing 
of your wish to reach the Southeast, till your loyalty 
is shown, and honored as it deserves,” said Agnes 
with her amber eyes shining like the dawn. 

It is hard for any honorable man to be suspected, 
is it not?” rejoined Vernon, not that he much loved to 
complain, but that he did love to have her comfort 
him. 

“ Thou, therefore, endure hardness as becometh a 
good soldier of Jesus Christ,” breathed from her spon- 
taneously in tones as sweet and solemn as those of 
any chant. 

He smiled at her enthusiasm, — a grateful, but mourn- 


IIS 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


ful, smile: “You hope that for me? — Well, at least I 
wish it; Life has taught me more wishes than hopes. 
Meantime — Miss Agnes, if I do your bidding will you 
do something for me? There is no other ‘little sister’ 
now to give to me the amulet that you gave Walter 
when he went away.” 

“The little New Testament? — Indeed, I will give 
you one ; but — that one ?” she faltered 

“ Oh no, that would be too much for me even to wish ; 
that is too sacred to be ever exposed to the chances of 
war again ; but if you could only put my name — mine 
alone — in any one, in your handwriting, and surround 
some of the verses in it with your little figures and 
flowers,” — 

“ That would be the least that I could do.” 


chapter xxyi. 

Agnes went out on the afternoon of that very day 
for the little keepsake she had promised Yernon, for 
the first time on foot since — since that black date, which, 
as such dates do, cut all her life in twain, — its first great 
sorrow from its early joys, — her womanhood from her 
youth. 

When she had chosen the book and left the shop, an 
irresistible, sudden yearning drew her toward the 
church beneath which she had seen Walter buried. It 
was closed. She walked to and fro before it, and could 
not bear to leave it. How it seemed to stand at bay 


AO NFS WENTWORTH. 


179 


over him, to keep her aloof! How huge and shut and 
blank and stony its great face looked, — impassive and 
relentless I If he — he, the live W alter, — had been there 
and seen half those tears that were coursing each other 
down beneath her pall-like mourning veil, how quickly 
every barrier would have been opened to her ! How 
the sexton would have been found, the gates unbarred, 
and the dim aisle lighted that there at least she might 
pace and pray near, if not in sight of, the dead, and out 
of sight of the curious eyes, tvhose notice she began to 
fear that she was even now drawing upon her ! How 
strange it was, there, — where so many Sundays he and 
she had set their faces homewards side by side, — to see 
the vev} pigeons alive and free, pluming themselves 
and running to and fro together in the last bright rays 
of setting sunshine on the outside, and to think of him 
locked within, powerless, helpless, speechless and 
breathless, in the cold and in the dark 1 

Fear lest she should sob aloud in the street, at 
length forced her away. Almost faint with her dis- 
used exertion, she paused at the door of the dark dining- 
room, thinking to rest a little before going up to her 
chamber. But she heard voices above — Rosamond’s 
and a young man’s — a young gentleman’s, — almost 
for the moment she could fondly fancy it Walter’s. 
She listened until she made sure that it was Vernon’s ; 
and then a longing for light, and for some human com- 
panionship, made her creep on up one flight of stairs 
and join the pair in the library. 

It was almost as dark, however, as the room below. 
They were chatting sociably together by the firelight 
only ; and her entrance evidently interrupted their con- 


180 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


versation. Rosamond seemed then first to notice that 
the dusk had overtaken them, and rose to ring, as Ag- 
nes wished that she would not, for John and his gas- 
lighter. Then Rosamond and Vernon each began to 
say something, — perhaps neither of them knew what; 
and each left off for the other to finish. The upshot of 
it all was that, between their apparent embarrassment 
and Agnes’s anxiety lest the intrusive lamps should 
show them her swollen eyelids, she withdrew again, 
as soon as she could do so without betraying her pain- 
ful consciousness that her presence was an intrusion. 

She rolled her sofa into the bay-window of her cham- 
ber, and lay looking out to see the moonshine on the 
snowy graves and tombs, with a strange, stunned feel- 
ing as if her chief fellowship had been, was, and was 
forever to be with the dead. Her desire to weep had 
been surprised away ; — her sense of solitude, intensi- 
fied. Perhaps nothing strikes into us a more sudden, 
instinctive, unreasoning sense of loneliness than to 
discover, that two persons to whom we seemed to 
be much, — and who lately seemed to be little to one 
another, — have approached each other and left us out, 
— that they have entered into mutual confidences in 
which we may not share. For the first time now 
the idea fully bore itself in upon Agnes, that she had 
held the first place in one loving heart, and that that 
was the heart that was cold. 

Clearly, distinctly, the words that were spoken, as 
she was crossing the passage and threshold below, 
came back to her now, restored by the mysterious 
memory of the ear ; — her mind had then been absent, 
still occupied with the emotions of her walk : 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


181 


“You are satisfied asked the echo of the voice of 
Vernon. 

“It is all,” answered that of the fluty tones of Rosa- 
mond, “that a reasonable woman could require.” 

“And you give me your God-speed to Mr. Went- 
worth ?” 

“ With all my heart.” 

These sentences said themselves to Agnes, over and 
over. Their meaning seemed clear enough. “ Once it 
would have made me very happy,” thought she ; “ but 
that was when it would have made dear Watty so, too. 
Well, I hope grief is not making me selfish. I ought, 
at least, not to become impatient of others’ happiness, 
even if I can no longer enter into it. It does seem 
soon though, for another change.” Then dressing- 
time came; and it was hard to rise and dress ; and din- 
ner-time came ; and it was hard to go down and dine. 
“Will everything always be hard, henceforth?” 
thought she. 

Vernon dined with them. His presence was in one 
way a relief. It saved Agnes from her usual need of 
forcing her spirits in order to help Rosamond raise her 
father’s. It was too early in their mourning for them 
to open their doors to ordinary guests; in all his sor- 
row the poor old gentleman, without knowing what 
it was he wanted, missed his habitual stimulus of so- 
ciety ; and Vernon, always welcome for his own sake 
to Mr. Wentwortji, was now still more so for that of 
his son. 

The gentlemen sat long over their wine. The ladies 
left the table early. Rosamond went to the disused 
piano. Her good taste deterred her still from secular 

16 


182 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


music ; but instrumental music was her one enthu- 
siasm, — or at least had hitherto seemed so ; — and she 
seized the opportunity to make the room ring with 
selections from the so-called sacred pieces of Rossini, 
playing, as her sister thought, with more brilliancy 
and power than ever before ; though her execution 
was generally acknowledged to be extraordinary even 
for musical New York. 

Agnes was usually glad enough to hear her in any- 
thing ; but she always preferred the graver, grander 
German music to the Italian ; and now the latter shook 
her in every nerve. She quietly escaped to the retire- 
ment and comparative stillness of her chamber and, 
incapable of fresh invention and eager to shut out 
thought, busied herself in copying the tiny illustrations 
out of Walter’s New Testament into Vernon’s. The 
latter was likely to start for Washington within a week; 
and there was no time to lose. The music, though 
muffled, still came up after her, making her feet thrill 
through the floor. That helped to hurry her; she had 
to draw in time to it. At ten o’clock, it ceased ; and 
she was glad. Afterward, — she did not know how 
long afterward, — there came a knock at her door, — a 
knock like Walter’s. “Come in,” she cried; and 
Rosamond came in and kissed her. 

“ Darling, I am afraid for once I have been quite 
too noisy for you.” 

“ Dear Rosamond, don’t think I don’t like to have 
you happy,” answered Agnes, returning her caress 
with interest and all the more for a little self-reproach. 

“ I don’t think so,” said Rosamond somewhat ab- 
sently ; “ but do you like to have me happy, well 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


183 


enough to like to have me take my own way of being 
happy? — that is the question.” 

“I hope so. — I should like to try to like it at least.” 

“I hope so,” echoed Rosamond; “ that is the kind 
of sympathy I cherish in my noble heart for you and 
all my friends ; but it is sympathy, I have often ob- 
served, of the very rarest kind. Indeed, I have long 
labored under the impression that nobody is quite so 
magnanimous as myself” 

“And is it that sentiment with which my sympathy 
is called for just now ?” asked Agnes, trying to fall in 
with her mood. 

“Not exactly, nor my happiness either just yet. 
The fact is if I drove you away with the piano, with- 
out meaning it, I was bent upon driving away care, 
without — quite — succeeding in it. I am coming to a 
great resolution, Agnes, — one that it has taken me a 
long while to come to. We had better say whatever 
is to be said about it before than after. I think it is 
for my happiness ; I hope it will be, so far as anything, 
for the happiness of all concerned, on the whole; but 
once done, it cannot be undone. Suppose, when it is 
too late, I wish myself free again?” The expression 
of anxiety, which her face had lately worn, deepened 
till she looked almost haggard. 

“ Dear Rosamond, how could you, if you love him ?” 

“‘HimM — Whom?” cried Rosamond turning to 
her with a start, while both sisters colored to their 
temples. 

Mr. the gentleman we both have in our 

minds.” 

“I did not think you suspected; — well the whole 


184 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


world may know before long; so it can’t make much 
difference to him. — But I don’t ‘love him’ as you will 
love, if you ever do love, Agnes. I know men too 
well for that ; I have been all my life too much behind 
the scenes with them. The gloss is off ; I see them as 
they are, — larger patterns than we, often — that I don’f 
dispute, — but not half so finely wrought.” 

“But then, — oh sister, sister! — if you do not love 
him, how can it be for the happiness of either?” 

“He has been in love with me for years — almost 
from his boyhood. He would be only too happy to 
take me on my own terms. I make no more profes- 
sions to him than to you, Agnes. Whatever else I 
do, I would not decoy him blindfold to the altar.” 

“No, to be sure I know you could not; but” — 

“ AVhat ?” 

“I believe I ought not to say it.” 

“If you love me, you will. Let me hear both sides 
before I decide. Make me change my mind if you 
can. It may be doing me a good office, — better than 
we either of us -know.” 

“ But, then, I should think it could hardly be for any 
one’s happiness, Rosamond, to go on through life side 
by side with a person like you, bearing day by day, as 
he must, a growing burden of unreturned affection. — 
That was not exactly what I was going to say, though. 
Since you wish to hear it — I am afraid I do wrong 
to say it, but — may you not stand in the way of his — 
sometime — marrying some one who would love him ?” 
Agnes said it, in all honesty, for Rosamond’s and Ver- 
non’s sake ; but, for her own, she would rather have 
kept it back. She feared lest she might be acting out 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


185 


a selfish unwillingness, of which she was becoming 
conscious, to have her brother’s friend and her sister 
nearer to one another than to her. 

“ Why, to tell the truth,” answered Rosamond, 
“ with all his merits, I do not think he is precisely 
the man to make any woman of sense very much in 
love with him;” (“What different eyes we see with!” 
thought Agnes:) “and yet,” continued her sister, “he 
has too much sense himself to think a fool a fit wife 
for him. He would never, I believe, meet with any 
one who would try harder than 1 have tried to be in 
love with him.” 

“‘Tried to be in love with him’!” 

“ Yes. Now do you wonder that I hesitate ?” 

“ Yes ; — no !” 

“ Precisely, — most right the first time. You would 
not entertain the question for a moment ; but then we 
are, in every respect, two perfectly different beings. 
For one thing, you are a genius and born to a career; 
for another, in marriage you would have everything 
or nothing. Now my demands are moderate ; when I 
cannot have the best, I take the next best. I do not 
look upon life as a fairy godmother to afford me all 
that I should like ; I ask of it little more than the 
means of pleasant living. If I were to sit down to 
frame three wishes for it to grant me, one of them of 
course would be the very paragon of princes to sit 
beside me in my palace. As it is, 1 should think my- 
self only too lucky if I could get the palace without any 
prince.” The strange instinct of confession hurried 
Rosamond on. She spoke almost incoherently, and 
more and more rapidly as if she longed to have done : 

16* 


186 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“But we women are airy nothings; if we want a local 
habitation and a name, we must look to some of our 
lords and masters for them. I do want a local habita- 
tion and a name. Very soon I shall be a middle-aged 
human being. I don’t want to pass my Avhole life in 
doing nothing and being nobody. But until we take 
some man by the hand, we nevmr are properly en rap- 
port with the world. I really am, if not quite an inno- 
cent victim, the victim of circumstances. If I could 
have my own way, 1 think I might prefer to work my 
own way and enjoy myself. I am neither sickly nor 
silly nor lazy ; though I dare say I am nothing re- 
markable. Even if I could not outscold Jeffreys, or 
out-comment Blackstone, perhaps I could conduct a 
cause as well as Portia. At any rate, I do not see 
why I could not make as good a lawyer’s clerk as — as 
most other young people.” 

Agnes’s eyes followed the direction of Rosamond’s 
to the two youthful portraits, — hers and her brother’s, 
— which still hung over the mantelpiece. . It was im- 
possible not to see how much more intellectual was 
the head of the dark, spirited girl than that of the fair, 
effeminate boy. 

“ I should, truly, like to help papa,” continued Rosa- 
mond. “ I should like to do something to keep the 
credit he has won for his name from dying out of the 
world while we live in it. But there is no use in 
thinking of any of those things ; and it is hard for a 
family to have no young man in it. I know my choice, 
if he is my choice, will be attentive and dutiful to papa 
— whenever they are together.” 

“I am sure of it.” 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


181 


“And a kind brother, dear little Agnes.” 

“ I am sure that he would wish to be ; but — ” Agnes 
was going to say, “I suppose we shall be far apart.” 

Rosamond, however, for once interrupted her and 
still hurried on : “ ‘ But’ not like the one you have lost, 
— oh, no ; I know that too well. There are few such 
brothers in the world, or sisters, as you and he were to 

each other. But Mr. but he would help me to 

change the scene for you. What was I going to say ? 
— Oh ; — rightly or wrongly — ‘ whatever is, is right,’ I 
suppose, — at all events men have the lion’s share of 
the good things of this life; and, if we want any share 
at all, we must stoop to be their jackals The only 
thing for us to do is, to do without, or else choose the 
best lion we can — among the lions who offer. This is 
what I have sincerely tried to do. I think that — ‘ that 
gentleman we both have in our minds,’ as you say, is 
a liberal and honorable man of good principles and 
blameless life. If there had been any proof or sus- 
picion to the contrary, Egmont would have been only 
too glad to tell me. He was jealous, poor fellow I I 
liked Egmont best ; though I never should have mar- 
ried him, because — because his character was different. 
I never was — I never could be — I never shall be in 
love ; but I always do love, as a matter of course, any- 
body that belongs to me; that makes me think that, — 
if I ever have one, — I shall love my husband. I never 
broke a promise in my life ; that makes me think that, 
if ever I take marriage voWs, I shall keep them.” 

She paused, perhaps for encouragement, but, re- 
ceiving none, proceeded to consider the alternative as 
if Agnes had proposed it: “No, I cannot live without 


188 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


excitement ; I don’t believe anybody can — any life that 
is more than a living death. Some people think they 
do ; but that is only because they give some more 
respectable name to their own particular kind of excite- 
ment. Call it business, politics, play, fashion, philan- 
thropy, or what you will, it is either innocent excite- 
ment or excitement which is not innocent that is our 
life. Now you may wonder to hear it, little nun, but 
I was a really better woman at New York, with all 
my balls and calls and frolics, than I am in a way to 
be here in good, staid Boston between church and 
constitutionals. There at least I was generally care- 
ful about my reading; and since I came here I have 
been through a whole shelf of poor Watty’s French 
novels. After each one, I resolve against another; 
but then — there’s nothing else to do. What is there 
else to do?” said Rosamond, putting the previous ques- 
tion as the clock struck twelve. 

“To pray,” said Agnes. 

Rosamond noticed her look instead of her words. 

“ Poor child, how wan and worn you are ! Do go to 
bed; let me help you.” 

“Thank you, — not quite yet.” 

“ I have talked you to death ; but now at any rate 
you know the worst of me ; and still you love me ? — 
Only that one word more, little angel, — however I 
decide, you will love me ?” « 

“ Rosamond, if ever your love and the love of you 
are taken from me, I think I shall die. You are the 
last. ” 

“She is too tired to speak or think,” said Rosa- 
mond to herself, and left the room, her own spirits not 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


189 


raised by the conversation ; “ I ought not to have told 
her at night; but I did long to have it over ; and then, 
on her own account, I had a reason.’’ 


CHAPTER XXYII. 

Agnes did not go to rest, nor to bed ; she could not 
bear the thought of it. She was indeed, as Rosamond 
supposed, too tired to think ; but her whole being was 
one chaos of emotions. Every nerve of her spirit was 
jarred. There are crises in life in which there comes 
up a mysterious necessity that some must be sacrificed 
for others. Where such human sacrifices are to be 
made for the good of others, generous victims can 
sometimes yield themselves up thereto in a kind of 
passion of willingness, struggling upward, through 
much agony and prayer, into some sustaining fellow- 
ship with the crucified Son of Man and God. Agnes 
had a soul probably capable, — on that condition — of 
bringing itself sooner or later to this height. But 
where such a sacrifice seems to be not for the good of 
others, but merely an incidental though inseparable 
circumstance of their unhallowed sacrifice of them- 
selves and one another, then heaven help the poor, 
poor victim ! So heaven help Agnes ! 

She was put to the torture. A crowd of unanswer- 
able questions, smaller and greater, thronged her brain : 
If Rosamond did not mean to say that she would pawn 


190 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


her very soul to obtain the means of gaiety and pleas- 
ure, then what did she mean ? Could her own old 
friend — Walter’s friend — stoop so low as to enter into 
such a compact ? But if, in spite of Rosamond self- 
deceived, he did not understand her “own terms,” 
would not Agnes, at least, be a base party to the 
cheat if she welcomed him with cordiality into her 
family? And if, on the other hand, she should not so 
welcome him, would not he and Rosamond both think 
her unkind, and therefore the hearts of both grow cold 
toward her ? Could she herself be sunk so low as to be 
jealous of her sister ? Might not half this bitter heart- 
ache, that she had, be jealousy without her meaning or 
knowing it? Oh, why think so much about herself? 
Let herself go ! But what would the end of it be to 
all of them, if even the beginning stung Rosamond 
into speaking wuth such unwonted levity and bitter- 
ness ? 

Oh, why had Agnes not dissuaded her more ? Be- 
cause she was too self-conscious. Then why could 
she not dissuade her more to-morrow? Because she 
was perhaps still too self-interested. Oh, it was 
misery — misery every way, — while Park Street clock 
went on striking “ One o’clock,” — “Two o’clock,” — 
“ Three o’clock,” — “ Four o’clock,” — “ Five o’clock,” — 
as if, to Agnes’s fevered apprehension, measuring out, 
“Woe!” “Woe, woe!” “Threefold Woe!” “And 
yet more Woe!” “For evermore. Woe !” 

As often as she knelt to say her prayers, she started 
up again, fancying, in her feverish wretchedness, that 
her own irreverent inattention was turning the ear of 
Mercy from her. At last, in something like despera- 


A ONES WENT WOR TH, 


191 


tion, she threw herself down once more, with her prayer- 
book opened before her, and hurriedly ran over the 
inspired petitions of the Church of England, at first 
mechanically, but with a growing sense of shelter and 
help that calmed the throbbing of her pulses until she 
was able to resign herself to rest. 

Agnes was young enough to fancy, when she waked, 
that as that night had been, so was the rest of her life to 
be. She was wrong as to both fact and theory. Even 
when our misfortunes are unalterable, our sense of 
them is not so. 

As she sat leaning back in her chair, with her late 
breakfast before her, musing much and fitfully trying 
to eat a little, there was a tap at the door. Vernon 
came in, looking as she would have expected, animated, 
eager, and a little nervous. She started. 

He explained: “ Rosamond — Miss Wentworth — told 
me I should find you here. I was anxious to see for 
myself how you were. She was afraid you had not a 
good night. 

That seemed very brotherly; and Agnes did her 
best to prepare to be sisterly: “ Thank you ; it is very 
kind. If I turned night into morning, I turned morn- 
ing into night again ; as you may guess by finding me 
here at this time of day. I hope it is not too late for 
me to offer you a cup "of coffee 

He accepted it, but played with it, as if he wanted it 
only as an excuse for staying. He stirred the fire when 
she shivered, drew down the window-shade when the 
sun flashed in her eyes, put anything that she wanted 
within her reach as soon as she wanted it, and seemed 
tenderly bent upon watching over her, while urging 


192 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


upon her nothing — not even conversation. Not even 
Walter had ever taken such care of her before ; but 
then, to be sure, while she had Walter she never had 
need of such care. 

As she acquiesced in the silence which Yernon 
seemed to see to be necessary for her, she had to ac- 
knowledge to herself, “ He does make a sweet brother. 
He must end, if he cannot begin, by making Rosamond 
love him as he ought to be loved. It seems as if she 
must love him already better than she thinks ; and per- 
haps he sees it for himself. Perhaps the chief of my 
trouble last night was only some shocking, morbid 
phase of feeling, that will never come back or, at all 
events, forever pass away as I regain my health ; and 
then I shall be as thankful as I used to think I should 
be, to have him really belong to us.” With the hope, 
her countenance brightened ; and she rewarded his 
attentions with a smile that was no longer forced or 
sad, but that was almost startled away again, not- 
withstanding, by her seeing how brilliantly his own 
reflected it. 

“You are better already,” cried he. “You looked 
quite worn out. When you have been an artist as 
long as I, you will know how to understand these fits 
of nervous exhaustion and depression, — very miserable, 
— appalling until you understand them, — when you do, 
often very easy to deal with ; though, I own, my pre- 
cept may be better than my example. When they are 
complicated with sorrow, they become a disorder in 
which it requires no common hardihood to enable the 
patient to minister to himself. How I wish it were 
in my power to take care of you ! Change and fresh 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


193 


air are my panaceas. Could I persuade you to walk 
out with me a little way 

“Thank you, — I am afraid not to-day.” 

“And my days here are numbered.” 

Agnes’s heart smote her: What if he never came 
back? “I have your little book all ready for you,” 
answered she, by way of atonement ; “ would you like 
it this forenoon ?” 

“ I should not like to make you go up stairs.” 

“It is no further off than the library. I think we 
shall both be more comfortable there now.” 

They went up together. Agnes expected to find 
Rosamond, as she had left her, there ; but the room 
was empty. She took the little claret-colored stamped- 
leather volume, with its golden cross a ad clasps, from 
a drawer of the table in her alcove, and brought it to 
him. 

He did not thank her. He only received, unclasped, 
and opened it, and stood turning over the pages with 
the airy pencillings in the margin, as if he did not see 
them. There was a pause on both sides; then, still 
looking down, he said in a low voice, with a tremor in 
it as if from a beating heart, “ 1 have something to say 
to you before I go. May I say it now ?” 

If his heart beat, that of Agnes stood still. He 
raised his eyes, glowing as she had never seen even 
his eyes glow before, to her face for an answer. She 
bowed, and rested her folded hands on the high back 
of a chair by which she happened to be standing. 

“Sit down first,” said he, gently enough, yet not 
without a certain presentiment in his tone, that sit 
down she would. 


IT 


194 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


She obeyed. Brothers are expected to be sometimes 
a little peremptory. 

Again he paused as if for words, till another glance 
at her pale face hurried him, and he said, scarcely 
knowing what he said, “Agnes, — Miss Agnes, — my 
eyes have lately been opened to see that a heavenly 
spirit has, for years, been often near me, ministering to 
me so far as my earthliness could suffer it to minister. 
If I had the tongue of a seraph, I would thank you be- 
fore I leave you.” 

lie paused again ; but there was no answer ; for 
wdiat could Agnes answer ? “Agnes, — Miss Agnes, — 
we measure our demands upon guardian angels not 
by our own deserts, but by their goodness. These are 
scarcely times for marrying or giving in marriage ; but 
yet will you not give me your dear hand as a pledge 
that, if Peace ever comes again, you will bring her into 
my heart and home?” 

She leaned back and closed her eyes ; her breath was 
gone. He knelt and took her passive hand. That 
roused her; and she looked at him and said almost in- 
audibly, “I cannot understand.” 

“ I know I am not worthy to be your husband ; but 
you will make me worthier if you will be my wife,” 
explained Yernon, made more matter-of-fact all of a 
sudden by a well-founded fear of her fainting away. 

Agnes sat upright in her chair. Something seemed 
very strange ; something seemed very bright; but what 
was real ? “ But Rosamond ?” she faltered, as a little 

of her breath came back. 

“Approves heartily. I was just obtaining her sanc- 
tion here yesterday afternoon, when you came in. She 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


195 


only advised me to wait till this morning before I 
spoke to you, for fear of your night’s rest being dis- 
turbed.” 

“ Yes, that was very good for my night’s rest,” said 
Agnes. Internally, in the great revulsion of feeling, 
she laughed and cried and clapped her hands. Ex- 
ternally she was very quiet ; for 

“When indeed our Joves come down 
We all turn stiller than we have ever been.” 

But a soft rose-color came into her cheeks, and an am- 
ber light into her eyes. She returned the pressure of 
his hands tremulously and softly; and Yernon was 
answered in a measure. As for the fuller measure 
that he coveted, he was good and waited. She was 
busy with trying her new-found treasure on every 
side, to make sure that it was all genuine and not 
fairy gold : “ My father ?” 

“I secured his consent before I ventured to ask for 
yours. Agnes, my own dear Agnes, you will not be 
the one, — you who have shown me paradise, — to shut 
the door of paradise to me. It is far off at the best ; 
it may be years before I can reach it to enter in and 
dwell. May I not have the distant glimpse to light 
me onward in the black path which I, — which all loyal 
men, — in these days, must tread ? Surely you love me 
a little, or you could not look at me so kindly. You 
could hardly look at me more kindly if you loved me 
as I love you ” 

Do I not love you, Ernest? I would give my life 
for you if it were mine to give, — for you and Walter.” 
Her tones and look said it more than her words. 


196 


AGNES WENTWORTH, 


“ I know it. Whatever else I doubt, you are my 
creed. But for the future — ” 

“ Oh, that awful future ! Must it come in to torment 
us before the time? Now without it would be such 
infinite peace and bliss ! A whole lifetime's relief and 
blessedness seem to be pressed into to-day. If it 
could only last !” 

“But it will last while we last, if you will — you icill 
— only give me this precious hand upon it.” 

“Dearest Ernest, God knows how ready — how joyful 
I am to promise you all that I can. I will be as con- 
stant to you as if I were yours. If God ever gives me 
to you, I will be yours ; and then, or never in this 
world, I shall be happy again.” 

“ ‘ If he gives you to me’ ? — how ?” 

It was hard for Agnes to explain : “ Oh, Ernest, 
you are going away. You are going into danger. 
The time is near — the time is here — when my prayers 
must be fervent for you ; and, that they may be effect- 
ual, how I must strive to be righteous ! Ernest, would 
it be right — now — for me to promise myself — uncon- 
ditionally — to you?” 

• “ My poor child, you are not so ascetic as to suppose 
such a love as yours and mine unpleasing in the sight 
of God ?” 

“No, not that.” She took up the little New Testa- 
ment again, opened it with trembling hands and pointed 
to a text. 

He read, “^Be ye not unequally yoked with unbe- 
lievers.’ Is that the barrier between us ?” 

“ The only barrier.” 

“ I promise you, that I will do my honest best to 


AG^ES WENTWORTH. 


197 


throw it down. I do believe in God; God help 
me 

“In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen!’’ 
said Agnes. 

He pressed her no further. It went to her heart to 
see into what a tender and chastened sadness his new 
hope faded away. He made her rest on the sofa. 
He read to her in his deep, prophetic voice from the 
gospel of St. John. The room was like a still cham- 
ber of death; except that he who was about to face 
Death was the one to minister. 

Anybody, who did not know Yernon, may think 
that it was but a cold lover who could be so easily put 
off. But I did know Yernon. I know that, with 
all his failings, the poor fellow was very noble. Any- 
thing that he really loved, he was capable of loving to 
a white heat of self-devotion. He might fairly enough 
have pleaded that, if his fellowship was not with 
Christ, neither was it with Belial. But he saw, as 
soon as Agnes had spoken, that she was right. “As 
the husband is, the wife is,” could never be spoken 
more truly than to her. Her character was a strong 
one in many respects ; but it was moreover strongly 
sympathetic, especially on the side toward him. Per- 
haps he agreed with a more famous sceptic in hold- 
ing infidelity “too stern a virtue for a woman.” He 
had not the heart, at any rate, to lure his dove down 
from her high, clear Ararat above the muddy waters 
of this life, to ruffle and drabble her snowy wings by 
struggling in the flood of doubt with him. Looking 
backward, he could see how his mere knowledge of his 
father’s silent unbelief had made faith well-nigh im- 
17 * 


198 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


possible to him even in his boyhood. He did not 
wish, in his turn, to leave a son behind him to take his 
chance against such trial and temptation as he himself 
had undergone, with no more aid and guidance than 
he had had. A rare refinement and loftiness of nature 
had happened to preserve him from any outward deg- 
radation; but he had seen many another go down at 
his side, and had not wondered. So much as this he 
believed, especially in Agnes’s presence, that, if reli- 
gion was a dream, life was not worth the having. 

So their last days together were very solemn and 
affecting days, spent in mutual tenderness all the 
greater for their mutual pity. Because they could be 
no more to eac^^other, they did for each other so much 
the more eagerly all that was in their power. As if 
she had been his wife, Agnes prepared every little 
comfort she could think of, for his journey and cam- 
paign. As if he had been her husband, he bequeathed 
all his property to her ; though that she did not know 
till some time afterward. Rosamond, like herself, con- 
siderately held aloof and intercepted from them all 
interruptions. Straightway the last night came. 

They were together and alone. He showed her a 
small Bible, and asked her to keep it for him while he 
was away. It was a handsome one and, to her sur- 
prise, bore the marks of long though careful use. “ My 
mother gave me this, when I first left her for the 
North,” said he ; “for her sake, I have read it often. 
The time may come when I can bear to see it, and to 
think of her, again.” 

“Poor Ernest!” said Agnes, as she received it and 
thought of the example set him, and the curse laid 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


199 


upon him, bj that mother, “how much you have had 
against you, in every way!” 

“Nay,” cried he, “she acted the book out faithfully, 
according to her understanding of it, poor dear lady ; 
and I have no doubt that she does so still.” 

“ But that can hardly make it the easier for you to 
believe in the book.” 

“ I think she takes her present maxims chiefly from 
the Old Testament. Am I to receive that too ?” asked 
he playfully. 

“As a present rule of life and faith? — I supposed 
that the revelation of Moses was chiefly for the Jews 
and the times before the birth of the Saviour ; and 
his revelation for us and for all times.” 

“ In serious earnest, love, I could not leave you 
without learning from you, as definitely as you can 
show me, what is the standard of faith which you 
would have me aim at.” 

“I am very ignorant,” said Agnes timidly ; “ but I 
should not think that any right-minded Christian could 
call any one an unbeliever who, in deed and word, ac- 
knowledged Jesus Christ as his divinely appointed 
and accredited Master and Lord, and who looked to 
him as his Saviour.” 

Yernon took from his pocket the little volume she 
had given him, and wrote something carefully on the 
fly-leaf. Then he showed it to her, — her own words, 
with the date of time and place. She could only hope 
that those words were right; she knew not how to 
qualify or to take them back. Then he talked to her, 
and she to him, of other things ; and then they parted ; 
how, they never told, nor how they bore to part. 


200 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


CHAPTER XXYIIL 

When he was gone, Agnes had time to think in her 
turn of Rosamond, and of the enigmas she had talked 
on the eve of Yernon’s proposal. Agnes’s tongue was 
loosed now, at all events. If Rosamond really was on 
the point of accepting a lover, and not for love, Agnes 
would do her utmost to dissuade her, if it was not too 
late. But, having misunderstood her so far, might not 
Agnes, in the feverish perturbation of her own lately 
unhinged mind, have misunderstood her further ? 
And who could that mysterious ‘‘gentleman in their 
minds” be? 

The morning after Yernon’s departure, Agnes was 
considering how to broach the subject anew, as her 
sister in unusual silence sat embroidering beside her, 
when a postmarked letter was brought in. She put 
out her hand for it instinctively ; but it was directed to 
“ Miss Wentworth Agnes must wait for hers from 
Yern®n, of course, till to-morrow. She had happened, 
though, to see the handwriting, — masculine certainly, 
— whose, she could not remember; yet it looked 
familiar. It was not a Yan Rooselandt hand; and 
Rosamond was little addicted to correspondence with 
gentlemen out of her family. Could the writer be “ the 
gentleman” ? 

“A message for you, dear,” said Rosamond presently 
with affected carelessness as, having glanced over the 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


201 


missive with an uncommonly fine bloom on her cheeks, 
she put it into the fire. 

“Indeed 

“From Mr. Horace Single: his ‘ fraternal regards;’ 
and he hopes for your better acquaintance. — He will 
be at the Tremont on Saturday. I did not expect him 
till Monday.” 

“ Rosamond 1 Do you really mean ?” — 

“Yes, I really mean,” — said Rosamond, clipping 
the needleful of worsted she was working with, into 
inch bits, with her sharp little scissors, and looking at 
it like a pretty young Atropos. 

“ You have accepted him ?” 

“ I have accepted him,” said Rosamond, gravely 
and resolutely raising her eyes to meet her sister’s ; 
“and therefore you will accept him too, I know, for 
my sake.” 

. “ Certainly — if — I have no dislike to Mr. Single, — 

that is, personally,” — stammered Agnes, remembering 
his dreadful politics, “ only” — 

“‘Only,’ as I told you, we are two different crea- 
tures. I gave you warning and a full hearing before- 
hand remember, Agnes; and you could not bring me 
over. ” 

“Because my tongue was tied. Oh, Rosamond, I 
could not plead with you then as I would, for fear of 
pleading — somewhat — my own cause. I understood 
you to be speaking of — of Ernest.” Rosamond rose 
and standing before her, stroked her cheek and looked 
fondly into her eyes. “Now that I feel,” continued 
Agnes, “ what bliss it is to love as one is loved, how 
can I let you cut yourself off from it forever ?” 


202 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


‘‘Perhaps you describe something like the state of 
the case between Mr. Single and me,” returned Rosa- 
mond, trying to speak lightly. “At any rate, I have 
given my word.” 

“Oh, why could I not — why did I not — speak 
earlier ?” 

“ It would have done no good. Don’t reproach your- 
self, darling; leave that to those who have cause. I 
could no more love like you, than Mr. Single could 
like Mr. Yernon ; and therefore, trust me, I am glad 
that, of the two, Mr. Single fell to my share. He is 
the least likely to claim more than I can give.” 

“ But oh !” — 

Rosamond stopped her mouth with a kiss; “Now 
forget all that I have been weak enough to say about 
the matter, for this : I have given my word.” She 
appeared to be seeking refuge from regret, in the argu- 
ment that regret was vain. 

The conversation left Agnes lonelier than before. 
She tried to make amends to Rosamond, by affectionate 
attention, for the sympathy that she could not afford 
her; but Rosamond involuntarily drew off. She felt 
herself lowered in Agnes’s eyes and, accordingly, in 
her own. The younger sister’s pure faith in the elder 
had hitherto been to her as a “becoming” looking-glass 
in which to see her own image appear to the best ad- 
vantage. Now she knew that the image there must 
be dimmed and awry ; and she shrank and turned 
from it. 

In their secret hearts probably both sisters dreaded 
“Saturday” But Agnes had something to sustain 
her under it, in a letter from Vernon. Vernon’s letters 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


203 


were wont to be as quintessences of Yernon’s conver- 
sation. For a painter, he had remarkable powers of 
expression as a writer. Notwithstanding, Agnes will 
not give me any part of his correspondence for publica- 
tion, except the heads; and this time he appears to 
have had nothing of any importance to communicate, 
except his wish to consult her about giving up his 
will-o’-the-wisp hunt after shoulder-straps, and aiming 
at his little ambulance commission, without further 
loss of time. (I have seen the epistle in question, — 
at a distance; — and it was eight pages long. Now I 
leave it to my readers to judge whether so small a 
head could ever have sufficed so large a body, without 
an utter sacrifice of the noble virtue of conciseness to 
what critics call '‘an exhaustive treatment of the sub- 
ject.”) 

However, the letter furnished her with abundant 
occupation ; and proper occupation is, as we all know, 
a specific against mental disquiet. In the first place 
she had to run up to the attic, which had been his 
studio, and hide with the letter, — as a cat does, in a 
garret, with the mouse whose possession she enjoys 
with the ungrudging acquiescence of a whole house- 
hold. Then she had to kiss it; and then she had to 
read it ; and then she had to cry over it ; and then, to 
kiss it a little more, and to cry over it a little more, 
and to read it a few times more, — first one and then 
the other, just as it happened. Then she had to think 
about her answer and what advice she ought to give ; 
and that — especially as the letter went down with her 
again to her chamber, and lay open before her all the 
time upon her toilet-table, — carried her quite through 


204 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


the otherwise unpleasant business of dressing to re- 
ceive Mr. Brother-in-law. 

She longed meanwhile to have Vernon famous — 
famous as a warrior even, since war there must be and 
he must be in it. She was sure he deserved to be a 
major-general. Still was there not something finer in 
the shrinking from making any capital for himself out 
of his country’s misery, — of which she was beginning to 
perceive the beginning in him, — the willingness to 
forego any title of honor which should in after-times be 
a perpetual reminder to him of the dishonor of his na- 
tive State ? And yet, on the other hand, might not 
much be done to cover that dishonor, by any South 
Carolinian who should win and wear loyal laurels, 
“ faithful found among the faithless” ? But then again 
if he should be brought into the field against any of his 
near kindred, and — oh, horrible ! Vernon was a man 
never to get the better of such a misery, — to be haunted 
by it to his dying day. 

With such thoughts and questions all parleying with 
one another in her girlish brain, she went mechanic- 
ally down to see Single. The door-bell had rung; 
and somebody been admitted. She had no doubt it 
was he. 

The library-door was ajar. She saw him through 
the crack, and involuntarily paused an instant to see 
him as if for the first time. There he was, to be sure, 
looking, in all his appointments, like a “fashion-print” 
of a gentleman. How strange it was to see him coolly 
sitting there, established as" one in their domestic 
circle and never to be got out again! He was a 
tall and rather large, though not corpulent, man, with 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


205 


a style of manner still, as a shoemaker would have 
said, one size too big for him, that made him seem like 
a kind of mountain in a mist. 

Agnes shrank like a school-girl from going in ; once 
in, she would be in for it forever. Yet it hardly 
seemed worth while to go up stairs again ; and she 
could not well stay where she was without hearing 
'‘courting” not meant for her ears; for Rosamond was 
already doing her duty by him, sparkling with un- 
wonted jets and vivacity. Agues’s tread was incon- 
veniently light; but she grasped a fold of her bom- 
bazine, shook it, and made the lining rustle ; and 
Rosamond started and turned toward her ; and Single 
rose and received her greeting with due cordiality. 

It was a very kind one on her part, not only for 
propriety’s and for Rosamond’s sake but partly for 
Single’s own. She remembered how well Walter had 
loved him ; she hoped and rather expected as matters 
stood that Rosamond would love him, even if she did 
not a little already ; and she pitied him that Rosamond 
did not love him more, especially as he did appear to 
love Rosamond. He seemed very happy, — pleased 
with her and proud of her. He was pleased with 
Agnes too. He had never particularly noticed her 
before ; but, now that there was a reason for his doing 
so, he did so, and thought he might be proud of her 
likewise. She had grown up into “ quite a distinguished- 
looking young lady,” he told Rosamond by and by in con- 
fidence. The air of quiet reserve which was innate and 
unconscious in her, he took for haughtiness and called 
high-breeding. (Single was very fond of talking about 
high-breeding, a fondness which, by an odd contrariety, 
18 


206 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


seems peculiarly wont to be found in people who do 
not well know what high-breeding is.) He was ac- 
cordingly all the more gratified by the particular con- 
sideration with which she treated him. 

Rosamond meantime watched them with ill-concealed 
anxiety; and turned her hand as it lay on her lap, so 
that her mourning handkerchief fell over a stout new 
diamond heavily set in black enamel, that Agnes’s 
quick eye had, however, already spied “ squat like a 
toad” upon her sister’s round white finger which, 
lying as it did on her black dress, looked as if severed 
from her hand. Agnes would have been more grateful 
to Rosamond than to Single, had she been aware of 
the fact that that fair damsel’s pocket contained a 
pearl, of dimensions and setting to match the diamond, 
which Mr. Single had brought as a propitiatory offer- 
ing to his new sister. His betrothed had considerately 
intercepted it for the time, informing him that luckily 
Agnes’s birthday was not far off, and that the gift 
would then come with a peculiar grace. He highly 
approved the idea ; for, as Rosamond knew, appro- 
priateness was one of his hobbies. 

Perhaps his riding it so hard, as he did on this day, 
was a cause that combined with Agnes’s preoccupa- 
tion to make the conversation at dinner too uninterest- 
ing to her, for her to remember it. He talked to Rosa- 
mond about what he thought would be most agreeable 
to her, — gay people and doings at New York. Rosa- 
mond might have been only too glad to hear, if they 
had been alone ; for what he told her was like news of 
his native land to an exile ; but she feared it must jar 
on Agnes’s feelings, and therefore soon tried to change 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


20T 


the subject. He talked art to Agnes ; but that threw 
her thoughts back to her lover. To Mr. Wentworth 
he tried to talk law ; but as he did not know much 
about it beyond the “Lives of the Chancellors,” and 
as the poor old gentleman had more than enough of it 
at his office, for the present state of his spirits, even 
that did not prosper. Then, in the midst of his bliss, 
Single would remember the recent bereavement of the 
family, and his own real regret for the loss of his old 
classmate, and assume an undertaker’s air depressing to 
all; and Rosamond had scarcely more than helped the 
gentlemen to their nuts when she left the former to 
eat the latter by themselves. 

“ I am so sorry we were so dull to-day,” said Agnes 
with compunction, as she accompanied her sister to the 
library; and then it occurred to her that she might 
as well have held her tongue. 

“ It is rather soon to expect you to be very cheer- 
ful,” said Rosamond; “but, if it will not disturb you, 
I should like to play a little. It shall be something 
as grave as yourself. What shall it be ?” 

“Oh, the Seventh Symphony I How I should love 
to hear it ! Dear Rosy, how I shall miss your play- 
ing when you are gone!” 

Rosamond played with splendid desperation. But 
Mr. Single’s boots came creaking right into the midst 
of the Allegretto: “What is that? — Bach?” said he. 

Rosamond explained, struck a few “handfuls of 
notes ” as final chords, and rose. 

“ Is that all ?” said he, “ But why do you rise ?” 

“ Did you think I did not know your aversion to 
the piano?” 


208 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“To yours?’' returned he gallantly. “Really, 
Rosamond, I am anxious to hear your playing. They 
tell me it is something quite extraordinary. Is it not ?” 
asked he, turning eagerly to Agnes. 

“ To me at least, it seems so ; and I have no doubt 
it will seem so to you ; but I am afraid I have no right 
to call myself a critic.” 

“No doubt, — of course ; but I meant to ask, what 
do the critics say of it ? Do you happen to know ?” 

Thus adjured, Agnes could not on the spur of the 
moment think of anybody, or anything, in particular to 
cite, and was again vexed at herself for her own dul- 
ness. Rosamond laughed. 

“No matter,” said Single gravely, “I will see; I 
will hear; I will judge for myself. I heard Mrs. 
D’Eau-Remy last week play Liszt. She is considered 
the finest amateur performer in New York this winter. 
Rosamond, have you any of Liszt’s music there ? His 
is the hardest, isn’t it ?” 

“Perhaps so, — yes; — oh yes, I have.” 

“ Now then, if you please ; I am ready,” said he, 
taking up a position which commanded a full view of 
her fingers and thumbs. 

The very spirit of mischief flew into Rosamond. 
She converted her musical instrument into an instru- 
ment of revenge. She was strong. She belabored 
the keys. She made the poor piano cry at the top of 
its voice. The unfortunate Abbe seemed to be under- 
going, with shrieks, the fate of the saint who was 
pounded in a mortar. All sense and feeling were lost 
in sound and fury. It was as if Czerny himself had 
run mad over his “Etudes de la Yelocite.” 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


209 


Agnes longed to stop her ears ; and if she could have 
shut her eyes it would have been all the better for her 
composure ; for they were drawn by a species of fasci- 
nation to the faces of the performer and spectator. 
Rosamond’s, half in fun, and half in malice,” was 
turned from Single ; and Single’s from Agnes. But 
there was a small chandelier Over the piano, and be- 
side it an unhappy mirror which reflected the happy 
pair. Quite unaware of this. Single had availed him- 
self of the excellent opportunity to tuck between his 
lips a tiny toothpick, which looked so much like a 
straw that Agnes could not help being reminded by 
him of a contemplative horse-jockey seeing a new steed 
put through its paces. Sitting so near the noise as he 
did, she was not surprised to see him put his hand to 
his head two or three times as if it ached ; but per- 
haps that was only because he had eaten cheese and 
pie. ''Brava! Superb!” cried he, promptly rising as 
Rosamond drove in the last notes and looked round 
for the verdict. “ Positively I could hardly see your 
little hands.” 

“ Is there anything else you would like to hear ? I 
am not at all tired.” 

‘‘ Heavens, I should think you would be! I cannot 
conceive how a delicate female can endure so much. 
The mere muscular fatigue of it must be tremendous. 
If you do not feel it to-night, you will to-morrow. I 
have never seen your execution surpassed ; really I do 
not see how our first professional performers could ex- 
ceed it. However, I will have the best of them up the 
river every week to teach you, if they can, or at any rate 
keep you in practice, — at nine in summer and twelve 

18 * 


210 


AGN-ES WE N'T WOR TIL 


in winter. Those are the hours at which I take my 
exercise ; so that you can make all the clamor that is 
necessary, without any fear of disturbing me. I choose 
my wife to be the first in everything. I have de- 
termined to spare no expense,’' continued he, address- 
ing himself to Agnes, “ to make your sister the hap- 
piest lady in the land. You must come very often to 
Tusculum, to see how I succeed, — to my villa, that 
is, — but probably you have heard of Tusculum.” 

Agnes was thankful t-o be able to say that she had, 
and had heard that that estate was very picturesque 
and lovely. She made haste to do so in order to give 
Rosamond time to recover from his speech, which had 
brought for once a dangerous light into her brown 
eyes and color into her cheeks. It was a tasteless 
speech undeniably; but Agnes, fastidious though she 
was, could forgive the unconscious tastelessness in it 
for the sake of the studious kindness. 

“ My guests generally seem to admire it ; I trust 
you will not disagree with them. If I take from your 
home its brightest ornament, the least I can do is to 
bid you welcome to enjoy it as often as possible in 
mine. And d propos, Rosamond says you are fond of 
riding. I always make a point, — and shall do so now 
still more, of course, — of having in my stud one or two 
horses that any lady can mount without the slightest 
fear ; and I have at your sister’s service, and yours 
whenever you are with us, a perfectly prudent and 
steady old groom, who will pick out the most level 
roads for you and go as slow as you like.” 

“Thank you; I am exceedingly fond of riding,” 
said that young diplomate. Miss Agnes, pondering in- 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


211 


wardly the while, how fond poor Rosamond might be 
of the horses that ''any lady could mount without the 
slightest fear,” of the flat roads, and of the prudent 
groom. 

Single had a dreadful way of taking up theories 
about you, and expecting to see you conformed to 
them. If you were a man under forty, on a visit to 
him, then you were “a hardy young man” and must 
enjoy shooting with him afoot from morning till night, 
or bumping with him your twenty miles a day on a 
hard-mouthed horse with a gait like a hammer’s. If 
you were a woman, of any age whatever, then you 
were a “ delicate female,”* — unequal to walking two, 
or riding ten, miles, or an inch even if the wind was in 
the east, — and must consequently prefer to be left at 
home upon any but the tamest excursions. In a word, 
he had had his own way too much and too long ; and 
a selfish bachelor life up to the age of thirty years had 
developed to the utmost his naturally remarkable gift 
of egotism, — egotism, that sworn foe to tact. 

There was another thing that made against him 
now. He had seldom much affected any society but 
that of “his equals,” i.e. other young men of leisure. 
Accordingly he wanted practice in adapting himself 
to any other society. At the same time his pride and 
vanity, at adding to his other possessions that of the 
most brilliant belle “in the market,” had got into his 
head and, for the time being, completely turned it. 


* “ If you mean cat, my dear, then why don’t you say cat ?” 
commented Kosamond, one day when she had heard the above 
expression once too often. 


212 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


Thus he outdid himself with blunder upon blunder ; 
till even Rosamond wondered to see what a figure he 
cut as a wooer, and her sister, feeling it all for her, 
dreaded to see him open his lips. 

When at last the evening had come to an end, Agnes, 
reviewing it and especially the musical entertainment, 
was at no loss to understand, though she was sorry to 
hear, a low peal of laughter which came from Rosa- 
mond’s chamber. Rosamond had better have cried. 
She did however, probably, after some fashion repent; 
for that scene was never repeated. Most likely the 
impulse took her by surprise; and she would have 
laughed more heartily with Single than at him, over 
her mischief, if he had not been too owlish to detect 
it. It was unlucky for both, that he could never un- 
derstand a joke. Notwithstanding, as Walter had said 
of Rosamond, she was “ a pretty determined person.” 
She determined to treat her betrothed with respect, and 
henceforth did so. She had too much respect, for her- 
self at any rate, ever deliberately to show him up be- 
fore any one, and especially before her sister. 

There was a strange semblance of illusion about the 
courtship, which blunted much of the pain of it to 
Agnes. It appeared to her as if she was dreaming it 
all, or seeing Rosamond act a charade, without know- 
ing the answer. At the same time there was present 
discomfort and annoyance enough to keep her from 
dreading the end as she otherwise would have done. 
Single mortified her in many small ways; while ill- 
bred people would set fib-traps for her by asking 
her how she liked her new brother, which seemed to 
her about as pertinent an inquiry as. What is your 


A ONES WEE T WORTH 


213 


opinion of your father ? — or your sister ? Single was 
too conspicuous for good taste in his equipages. He 
prided himself on speaking with sn6bbish arrogance to 
his groom. He kept the man in livery; — and repub- 
lican Agnes could not bear such a dress on any country- 
man of hers, particularly at a time when army-blue 
seemed the only wear for a true-hearted, able-bodied 
young American. — And when he walked with Rosa- 
mond in Beacon Street, he had his idle horses paraded 
beside him in their blankets, as if to publish his selfish- 
ness to the whole town, while there were sick and 
wounded soldiers in it to whom a drive might have 
given more of the breath of life. 

The wedding was over in a few weeks. What was 
there to wait for? There was no hope of Rosamond’s 
abandoning her purpose; and she was dead to her 
family already. Walter’s sister and his friend were 
made, — if not one, — man and wife in the church where 
he was buried. At some of the saddest funerals that 
take place, it is not the Burial, but the Marriage, Ser- 
vice that is read. Agnes wept, but still as if in her 
sleep. The white bridal dress made her think of the 
shroud; but the only realities to her were Walter’s 
death, Ernest’s love, and the war. 


214 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

Into the work now— the woman’s work — of the 
war, Agnes threw herself with eager devotion. While 
thus occupied, she felt herself again at Vernon’s side. 
Several times, he told her, he saw her handwriting in 
the superscription of comforts furnished for the use of 
his patients by the Sanitary Commission; and to him 
too it appeared as if she was there helping him, in 
visible presence. 

He was soon able to assure her, that he was “in the 
line of promotion.” At first he received, for his “ war- 
chariot,” only an old omnibus. This he had supplied 
with springs and stores, horses, and outriders with 
weapons and saddle-bags. After the first ensuing 
engagement, there was nodifiBculty about his obtaining 
a train of ambulances. He always found time to write 
to her every few days, even if it was only in pencil as 
he rode to the front; but it was some time before she 
could obtain many anecdotes of himself. He told her 
about everything and everybody else. 

At last, however, a young lieutenant, — a partner of 
hers in the days when she danced; how long ago that 
seemed! — who was at home on sick leave, called on 
her one evening and gave her the particulars of his 
escape. He was shot in the leg at the battle of New- 
berii, and unable to keep up with his regiment. His 
wound bled enough to make him thirsty and faint; 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


215 


and the night bade fair to be an unusually sharp one 
for the place and season. After lying six hours, as it 
began to grow dark there was a cry from one of the 
wounded near him, “they are coming for us.” He 
started up on his elbow, and saw ten or twelve men 
who forthwith began to help themselves to boots, 
great-coats, canteens, and money. He expostulated ; 
and one or two of his Celtic comrades cried ; for in 
their condition such warmth as they could keep in 
themselves was a matter of life and death] and it was 
agony to them to be roughly handled. “You keep 
cool, Yanks,” said one of the “gray-backs,” “Thar’s a 
party on us close by, pickin’ up stragglers. They’ll 
take car’ on yer, never fear.” Lieutenant B * * * 
thought of Andersonville and Libby. In a minute 
more, he heard the trampling of galloping horses. 
He determined to shut his eyes, stretch himself out 
stiff, hold his breath, trust to his coldness to make 
him seem dead, and to be buried alive in the earth, if 
it came to that, rather than in one of the rebel prisons. 
But just then there came a shout from the plunderers; 
“ Look out! — Yanks !” and once more he had to start 
up for a look. By the level light of the just risen moon, 
he saw the train rushing down. It was led on by a 
tall, slight, picturesque figure of a man, sword in hand, 
on a huge, fiery, dark horse followed by some half- 
dozen outriders, also well armed and mounted. There 
were about five minutes of as desperate hand-to-hand- 
fighting as Lieutenant B * ♦ * had ever seen ; and then 
the rebels took flight, leaving one dead and another, 
groaning with a terrible sabre-cut, to be lifted in the 
arms of the commander of the ambulance party and 


216 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


driven off with the rest of his patients. “ I declare to 
you,” exclaimed the young officer, “ the revulsion of 
feeling was so tremendous that — I was as weak, you 
know, as a baby — I came pretty near bursting into 
tears myself then, though not before.” 

Agnes’s eyes were full. Did you hear the com- 
mander’s name?” asked she shyly. 

“Oh, yes, — I got quite acquainted with him in the 
course of the night, — Vernon, a loyal South Caro- 
linian, rara avis in terris ! — a fine fellow every way and 
worthy of a better place. He seemed like a man who 
had seen better days. I shouldn’t be here now, if he 
hadn’t been there then. Some of those ambulance 
men, they say, are death to their passengers ; but he 
handled me like a woman, bound up my wound, and 
fed me with about a quart of beef-juice and brandy.” 

Vernon received a minute account of this little ad- 
venture in Agnes’s next letter. It concluded with an 
admonishment that if he would be “non-committal,” 
she should be obliged to keep him henceforward under 
a rigid system of espionage, but, as that might be 
troublesome to both parties, she should prefer to hear 
of his doings from his own confession : 

“Dearest Ernest,” pleaded she, “the present is all 
that we can call our own. Do not keep it from me; do 
not imagine me too cowardly to share it with you. I 
know in general that you must be in danger ; I did 
know it, you remember, when I let you go. Do not 
try to hide the particulars from me ; I should only 
fancy them more dreadful than they are.” 

From that time he kept a full journal for her, and 
sent it to her every week; but the journal again she 


AGNUS WENTWORTH. 


21t 


is strangely unwilling to show. She has read me 
some passages, pale and trembling as she read ; but 
each was striking enough, — one after another, — to 
~ efface the other ; and. I retain little more than a 
dreamy, unearthly impression of a life face to face with 
Eternity, and a running fight with Death. 

Vernon followed hard on the track of Battle. He 
sought the living among the dead, under sun, moon, 
stars, and storms, under cover and under fire. He dried 
and warmed himself and his men, and received food in 
charity, at negro-cabins hard by deserted and dis- 
mantled mansions which, glittering with lights and 
beauty and resounding with music, had welcomed him 
in his boyhood among their chosen guests. He found 
forsaken, swooning and starving, with grass in his 
mouth, a mangled young Confederate who, when 
brought into the light of the hospital fire, startled him 
with the wasted yet familiar lineaments of his ovvn 
race; and he had barely time to discover himself to 
the poor youth, — his mother’s sister’s son,— before he 
died. He ate and sang one day with gay young offi- 
cers, whose dying groans he answered, or whose life- 
less forms he found, on the next. The earthquake of 
the war had shaken him suddenly out of an inactive, 
isolated, ideal existence into the harshest contact with 
the roughest realities that mortal man can know. 


19 


218 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

Meantime Agnes saw nothing and heard little of 
Rosamond until, in the June following the marriage, 
an invitation came from her, for Agnes, to Tusculum. 

“Do you wish to go, Agnes?” said old Mr. Went- 
worth. 

“ I can hardly say I do, papa.” 

“Do not go then, my dear; neither do I wish to 
have you. Write, and tell them so.” 

“Could I quite do that? — it is their first invitation.” 

“ Well — perhaps not. It may be more proper to go 
for once. But after that, — if you do not enjoy your- 
self, — tell them, — use my name if you like, — tell them 
I cannot spare you. Tell Mr. Single, I have divided 
with him already and, if he has one of my girls, it 
is but fair that he should leave me the other in undis- 
turbed possession. Let me keep you till Ernest Ver- 
non takes you,' Agnes.” 

“Oh, papa, that is far enough away. We will not 
talk yet about anything of that sort.” 

Poor Agnes ! It seemed to her sometimes, that it 
would be unfeeling and unnatural ever to talk of it. 
Within ten months, Mr. Wentworth had grown ten 
years older. He was not only sadder, but milder and 
fonder. There was something very touching in the 
change. The stern, dry, self-reliant man began to 
cling to his daughter and to show that he did so. How 
could she ever leave him alone under a childless roof? 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


219 


How the law of compensation runs into evwything I 
Few women probably love, and very few certainly are 
ever beloved, like Agnes Wentworth ; but how few 
loving and beloved women have so much as she had 
to sadden their affection and to darken its hopes ! “Ah, 
it was not for nothing,” so she often said to herself, 
“ that fire from heaven signed the hand which I would 
give to Ernest, with the cross.” 

To return: she did not much enjoy herself at Tus- 
culum. Rosamond received her most affectionately, 
and Single with evident satisfaction ; and the place 
was lovely ; but when she arrived it was full of gay 
visitors. 

Single chose to give a fUe every month or two. He 
liked to read in his newspaper, as often as that, that 
“all that was most brilliant in our metropolis and the 
environs, in beauty, fashion, literature, and science, 
was sumptuously entertained on the first inst. at Tus- 
culum, the elegant villa of Horace Single, Esq.;” (at 
other times he usually preferred to be quite alone, in 
order to make preparation for the immortal history, 
which he was impatient to write, of the Lugdunensian 
Gauls.) What “ was most brilliant in beauty and 
fashion” usually happened to fall to Rosamond’s share 
on these occasions, — often for two or three days at a 
time, — and sometimes happened to be by no means the 
most brilliant in anything else. Wearily jaded and 
bored she looked ; and Agnes, ill as the scene accorded 
with her situation and feelings, was glad that Single 
had chosen that occasion for the time of her visit, and 
glad also of all her acquired samir-faire ; as it enabled 
her to take a part of the burden from her sister. 


220 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


Even after the company had dispersed, Rosamond 
did not appear to be in her usual spirits. Quite un- 
able to conceal her depression, she owned at length that 
the country did depress her miserably. She -had never 
tried it before, except now and then for a few days in 
summer, as an enlivening change when she was in high 
health and in the midst of chosen companions, and 
when accordingly she had found it enchanting and 
hattered herself that she had a genuine vocation for it. 
She had been brought to it this year at the beginning 
of Lent when, in its threadbare dinginess, it looked to 
her “in sackcloth and ashes.” (In fact, though this 
she hardly owned till afterward, she was sorely disap- 
pointed and disgusted to find Tusculum, though so 
much nearer, less like New York than even Boston 
was.) 

She complained of nothing else ; but Agnes, disposed 
as she always was to seek the things that make for 
peace, could sometimes scarcely help complaining for 
her. Rosamond lived like a guest in her own home, 
except that she was treated by her husband with less 
observance than if she had been a guest. She had no 
place, and hardly anything, that she could call her 
own. She could not even have Agnes to work with 
her upon her wardrobe in her chamber; because Mr. 
Single would at any time bolt in without knocking. 
It seemed never to occur to him, that she had any 
rights which a married man was bound to respect. 
Considering especially that, with all pomp and circum- 
stance, he with all his worldly goods had her endowed, 
it did look rather odd that he should consult her about 
the disposal of none of them, — not even about the 


AGNFS WENTWORTH. 


221 


arrangement of the flower-garden. At any whim of 
his own, or random suggestion of a slight acquaintance, 
green-houses, grounds, or shrubberies would be re- 
modelled ; and the first she knew of it might be, her 
seeking some pretty nook to which she was beginning 
to take a fancy, and finding it demolished. 

Even when he bethought himself of being kind, he 
was clumsy. “Rosamond,” said he, on sitting down 
to dinner one day, “ I made a great bargain for you 
this morning.” 

“ You are very good, my dear; What have you 
been doing ?” 

“ Selling your horse and buying you a pair of ponies 
for a phaeton.” 

“ Selling my horse !” cried Rosamond, half rising 
from her chair, — “ Is he gone ?” 

“Down the river by this time. You have quite 
given up riding, you know ; and he was only eating 
his head off.” 

The color which had flushed over Rosamond’s pale 
face, left it paler than before. She said nothing fur- 
ther, but was still more dejected than usual all the 
rest of the day. The horse was a remarkably pretty, 
spirited, and intelligent creature. She had bought it 
herself, out of a legacy left her by Mrs. Yan Roose- 
landt, and had whiled away some languid and lonely 
hours in teaching it to love her. It would run to her 
at her call in its paddock, and follow her like a dog; 
and when she could no longer use it she had meant it, 
— in fulfilment of her old promise, — for Agnes. Most 
of which facts Mr. Single did not know, to be sure ; 
but then, if he did not know what he was about, could 
19 * 


222 


A GNES WENT WOR TIL 


he not ask? The idea, that he had been meddling 
with what did not belong to him, never came into his 
head. 

Moreover, his real solicitude about her health took 
the form of debarring her from the fresh air and exer- 
cise which her constitution and condition required; 
and, in all these and other various cases, either she 
wanted spirits to remonstrate, or else her mouth was 
shut by something of the sullenness natural to a high- 
strung and high-spirited person brought helplessly un- 
der the power of another, and thwarted, for the first 
time. Rosamond never knew or dreamed of the 
amount of pride in her, till Single’s unconscious 
tyranny brought it to ward the surface ; but now it 
sometimes rose within till it frightened her, for, accord- 
ing to her light, she did mean to be a good wife. She 
hoped the new feeling was but a symptom of a new 
state of health, and tried to divert her mind from re- 
sentment and rebellion by being as extravagant as she 
could; as Pascal’s Jesuits recommended to their dis- 
ciples to appease themselves through their fasts by 
drinking wine. But though her regular allowance of 
pocket-money was liberal, and she had more when- 
ever she could bring herself to ask for more, she could 
not so much as dress to please herself. Rosamond’s 
taste was that of Polonius ; 

“ Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, 

But not expressed in fancy ; rich not gaudy.” 

But Mr. Single chose that his ‘‘wife should at all 
times, and in all places, alike be known, by her attire, 
for a lady;” and his idea of a lady involved that of a 
much bedizened she 


A ONES WENT WOR TIL 


223 


Now means are a very pleasant thing to have, no 
doubt, when they are means to any end one likes. 
But money will not always buy what the owner 
would like ; and, when that is the case, where is the 
pleasure in having money ? 

Single urged Agnes to prolong her visit. Rosamond 
did not: “It makes me all the duller, darling, to think 
how dull you must find it here.” 

“ Oh, Rosy, you know I never yet complained of dul- 
ness anywhere with you ; and, if you were only well, 
I should think your dislike of this lovely country quite 
comical enough to amuse anybody ; but there is papa.” 

“I know. He has been very good to let me have 
you at all. But now, if I am good enough to give you 
back again, he must spare you once more next winter. 
If all goes well, I want to take you to Washington for 
a fortnight and show you to Ernest. He could cer- 
tainly spare a few days, by that time, to recruit him- 
self.” 


224 


A GNES WENT WOR TIL 


CHAPTER XXXL 

Accordingly, toward Christmas Agnes was for the 
second time summoned to Tusculum, to make acquaint- 
ance with a little niece and to start for her tryst with 
Mr. and Mrs Single. 

Rosamond had had rather a serious illness; and her 
physician recommended change. “Wasn’t it very nice 
in him, and very fortunate for me ?” said the patient, 
shaking her curls with something of her old glee. 

“ ‘Fortunate’ ! — which ?” — said Agnes teasing her, 
“the baby or the fever ?” 

“The fever; if it had been the plague I should have 
hailed it with hosannas. I am to spend the summer — 
perhaps all the summers — at Newport, besides going 
to Washington now.” 

“ Rut what shall you do with the baby ? — Why, baby, 
must you go so soon? Aunt Agnes w^ants you.” 

“Let her stay till we ring then. Nurse,” said Rosa- 
mond to the Erse young person who had come, bloom- 
ing and grinning, in to resume her charge. “Poor 
little thing, I’m glad if Aunt Agnes does want you ; 
for I’m afraid you are not much wanted by anybody 
else.” 

“Why, Rosamond, what a sentiment!” 

“ I am not the most cruel of mothers, my dear. On 
the contrary, I believe I am less unfeeling than most of 
them ; for they think only of having a new live doll to 
dress and dandle; and I look forward, and ask myself 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


225 


what there is in store for it, if it lives to grow up. I 
think there are too many poor little girls in the world 
already, for their own good; and Mr. Single wanted 
a son and heir ; that’s all. The nurse is so faithful that 
I have no trouble with the poor little creature ; and I 
really like it better than I should ever have supposed 
I could.” 

“ But what shall you do with it when we go ?” 

“I shall leave it here of course, you inexperienced 
miss. It is too young to begin its wanderings; and 
besides Mr. Single would as soon travel with a young 
gorilla.” 

It was not for Agnes to advise ; but, inexperienced 
though she was in the care of infancy, if it had not been 
for Ernest she would gladly have olfered to stay with 
her favorite sister’s child herself, rather than leave it 
to unproved hirelings. 

She did not think Mr. Single took the wisest course 
to increase its mamma’s devotion to it. At dinner, 
that day, there was a distinguished savant whom Rosa- 
mond had known very well in old times. Rosamond 
joined in the general conversation with unusual interest 
and much of her former gaiety and brilliancy. The 
guest seconded her with evident enjoyment. But, as 
often as Single could get the word, he pertinaciously 
dragged them back to what he supposed to be “ladies’ 
topics.” Then, wearying of these himself, he made 
Rosamond an early sign to leave the table; and, on her 
failing to notice him, said point-blank, “My dear, 
hadn’t you better go above stairs now, and play with 
the baby ?” 

Rosamond went ; but she did not play with the 


226 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


baby. She only sank down as if from habit on a lounge 
in a bay-window, with her chin in her hands and her 
elbows on the cushions, and looking wearily and drear- 
ily down the long river said, “ How thankful I am we 
are going to Washington !” It was sad to see how 
little pleasure she found in her home. 

W ashington made amends to Agnes for much if not 
all. Yernon was there to meet her, — meet her for the 
first time for long, dangerous, lonely months, — those 
dreadful months of the war. In view of the exposures 
which he was undergoing, he had previously trained 
one of his men, a fine, athletic, brave, intelligent Ne\v 
Hampshire countryman to supply his place upon occa- 
sion, and had now left this man in charge. It was de- 
lightful to Agnes with her generous, theoretical, repub- 
lican faith in human nature, to hear how her lately ex- 
clusive recluse talked of some of his unpolished and un- 
educated patients and followers : 

“ Omnium gatherum,’’^ said he, — “some of them 
backwoodsmen, adventurers, city roughs , — some of the 
best of them farmers and mechanics; — if I had seen 
them before the war, I might have coolly set them 
down as fit for nothing higher than the merest dollar- 
hunting; and now, if we ever have time again for story- 
telling, what stories I shall have to tell you, — besides 
all that I have written you, — of their nobleness in doing 
and suffering ! Depend upon it, every new soul that 
comes into this world must be like a new substance 
brought into a laboratory ; you must see it put to test 
after test before you can have any idea of all there is 
in it.” 

The hearer thought this eminently true of the speaker. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


227 


How changed he was, and how developed and elevated ! 
A shade of gravity overhung him constantly as that of 
a man living in the shadow of Death, — the death of 
others if not his own ; but in that shadow how firm, 
composed, and confident he was! — calmer, — perhaps 
really happier, Agnes thought, — than she had ever 
seen him before. Walking in the path which he be- 
lieved to be that of his duty, he reminded her, she told 
him the first time that they were alone together, of that 
glorious soliloquy of “ Ion” : 

“Vain regret ! 

The pathway of iny duty lies in sunlight, 

And I would tread it with as firm a step, 

Though it should terminate in cold oblivion. 

As if Elysian pleasures at its close 
Gleamed palpable to sight as things of earth.” 

What if the path should end in leading me into a 
light brighter than the sun?” said he with his gravely 
bright smile. . 

“Oh, Ernest, is it possible?” 

“Sometimes, — often lately, — I hope that it is so. I 
hope that this,” said he, drawing from his pocket a 
thin black volume, “may prove the key of the lock 
that has all my life been too hard for me to turn. It 
was given me as a keepsake by a soldier from St. Louis; 

he died a hard death, but a wonderfully firm one, 

under my care ; — ‘ Lectures on Christianity’ by his 
own clergyman at home. They seem meant to meet 
precisely my difficulties. My father’s humanitarian 
theories always struck me as at variance not only with 
the record, but with the known facts in the case. I 
could never believe, as he did, that the pious senth 


228 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


meiits and beneficent example of any mere good jmung 
Jewish carpenter — (don’t wince, Agnes ; I don’t wonder 
you should, but such words are none of mine), — I cojn’t 
believe, I was going to say, that any man’s opinions 
and charities alone would ever have revolutionized the 
world as Christianity seems to have done and be doing. 
But then the trinitarian theories of my mother appeared 
to me contrary not only to our reason, — and I take 
our reason to be made in the likeness of God’s, — but 
contrary to Christ’s own teachings. If he was himself 
in reality the one supreme God, I cannot understand 
to whom he prayed ; and when he says, ‘ In that day 
ye shall ask me nothing,’ I dare not pray to him. This 
book looks to me as if it might point out a middle 
ground, not to be assailed from any other tenable 
ground, which a reverent and rational man may take 
and may hold, in peace and security. But I cannot 
tell yet. I have read; I shall digest when I can. 
Meantime I don’t want the book to be lost ; and it will 
be if it tries to stay with me. Could you take care of 
it for me ?” 

‘‘Yes, indeed. That I will.” 

“ You may read it too, if you will ; and — not if you 
won’t.” 

Single now came in, followed by Rosamond who 
tried, but in vain, to get him out again. It had been 
necessary to let him partly into the secret of the 
mutual understanding between V ernon and Agnes, — 
their only confidant except Clara Arden, who had had 
in a general way a kindness for Vernon from the time 
of her procuring him his consulate in Italy. — He 
thought that, considering her sister’s position and the 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


229 


present position of her lover, “ she might have looked 
higher.” Still he liked Agnes and was determined to 
play toward her the part of a good brother-in-law. Ac- 
cordingly he had promptly forgiven Vernon for being 
provoked by him, and lost no opportunity of proving 
the sincerity of their reconciliation by seeking his com- 
pany, and assuring him of the great mistake he was 
making in serving, if at all, in so humble a capacity. 
Single put all his “influence with the New York dele- 
gation in Congress” at Vernon’s disposal, to procure 
him “a commission worthy of his connections.” Not- 
withstanding, Vernon, like a sensible man, having 
found a niche that fitted him declined to play the 
always hazardous game of “Puss-in-the- Corner.” 

The tests of personal prosperity and national calam- 
ity were not bringing much good out of Single. He 
groaned over his taxes and over every success gained 
by the Grovernment; until again, except for Agnes’s 
sake, Vernon could scarcely have borne him. 

“ Every man to his mUier,^^ he admonished Vernon 
on the present occasion. (Is it not a benevolent pro- 
vision of Nature that those counsellors whose advice 
is worth the least are wont to be the most lavish in 
giving it, so as to make up in quantity for what is 
wanting in quality?) 

“What is any patriot’s mUier more truly than the 
service of his country?” rejoined Vernon patiently. 

“ Service of a pack of upstart Northern demagogues !” 
— (“ against the gentry of your whole section of the 
country,” Single came near adding, but rightly decided 
that he had better not.) “ My dear fellow, that’s very 
fine in theory ; but now suppose you drive an ambu- 
20 


230 


A GNUS WJSNT WOE TH. 


lance down to the Rapidan and pick up John t^mith, 
— what thanks do you get 

“The thanks of Mrs. John Smith,” replied Vernon, 
doing his best to answer a fool according to his folly. 

“ Well ; much good may they do you ; but couldn’t 
Jack Robinson pick up John Smith just as well?” 

“ Perhaps he could ; but if he was a ‘ cop^/er-head,’ 
— I beg pardon, a ‘peace-democrat,’ — I’m afraid he 
wouldn’t.” 

“ Well, suppose he didn’t ; who cares ?” 

“You would care,” said Vernon fixing his eyes upon 
him, “if you saw what I have seen, — disabled men 
with their bones through their skin from famine.” 

“ Good heavens ! I didn’t mean anything of that sort, 
you know,” cried the horror-struck Single, himself as 
kind-hearted a man as a man utterly without imagina- 
tion can well be ; “ there take that, do, and buy some- 
thing good with it for the poor beggars and he 
thrust a bank bill into Vernon’s hand. “But what I 
did intend to say was just this : you run these risks in 
order to do what any capable menial could do just as 
well as you ; you probably disable, sooner or later, 
your brains, eyes, or right hand even ; and then wh"».t 
gets your fame as an artist ?” 

“ What would get it in any case, I imagine, — 
Lethe.” 

“You don’t mean that you’ve abandoned the idea of 
achieving anything that will last ?” 

“ On the contrary, I am more than ever bent upon 
things that will last,” said Vernon with a smile of in- 
telligence at Agnes’s sympathizing face ; and then, to 
the relief of both of them. Single was called away to 


A ONES WENTWOR Til. 


231 


look at a blood-horse; when Rosamond for once begged 
leave to accompany him. 

“ You have not lost your interest in painting though, 
have you, Ernest asked Agnes rather anxiously, 
when they were alone. 

“ On the contrary again ; it is accumulating with 
every day of fasting from oils and easels. My interest 
in being praised for my painting must be on the wane, 
however ; or I must be a fool of incurable folly. Do you 
remember that passage in Dante’s Purgatory, Agnes, 
that you asked me to explain to you, the last time but 
one that I was in Boston? — 


‘Non 5 il mondan rumore altro che un fiato 
Di vento, ch’or vien quinei ed or vien quindi, 
E muta norae, perehe muta lato. 

Che fama avrai tu piu, se vecchia scindi 
Da te la came, che se fossi morto 
Innanzi chc lasciassi il pappo e il dindi, 

Pria che passin mill’anni? ch’e pih corto 
Spazio air eterno, che un mover di ciglia 
A1 cerchio che piu tardi in cielo e torto.’” 


Agnes’s eyes shone till Yernon called her Beatrice, 
and added, “You understood it already at heart, I 
suspect, better than I. But it is one thing, I find, to 
theorize upon such truths apart from real life, and 
quite another to have them driven in to one’s very soul 
by things one sees and feels.” 

“ Such as ?” 

“ As this : a few months ago, young Captain J * * 
of the — th New York, entertained me at his mess. 
We were all in good spirits; and after dinner he made 
a speech complimentary to me. People always think 


232 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


their own eulogists eloquent, I suppose ; and therefore 
I will not say that he was so, but only that his other 
hearers behaved as if they thought him so. Several 
of them were fellows of influence and fortune ; and I 
went back to my tent, I own, feeling as if my reputa- 
tion was made. The next day the regiment went into 
action and was terribly handled by Stonewall Jackson. 
Most of our little party were killed, wounded, or taken 
prisoners. After a search the next night, with lanterns, 
over the field for hours, corpse by corpse, I found poor 
J * * * ’s, so disfigured that I recognized it only by an 
antique ring I had noticed on his finger, as it rested 
on the table beside me while he w^as speaking. My 
panegyrist was gone as utterly as if he had fallen in 
the Trojan war.” 

“Ah,” thought Agnes, “you turn the conversation 
easily enough from yourself to another ; and you ex- 
plain how you can forego the admiration of your fellow- 
mortals; but you do not suggest what a blank the rest 
of your own mortal life will be to you, if this horrid 
war disables you for your art. I wish Mr. Single had 
been as forbearing.” Meaning to imitate Vernon’s 
forbearance, she did not speak her thought; but un- 
consciously she looked at him so pitifully that he 
answered as if he read it : 

“We won’t be sorry for anything, dearest, before it 
has happened ; and, at any rate, lejeu vaut la chandelle. 
Now you will tell me about yourself, and what you are 
doing at home from morning till night, so that every 
time I look at my watch it will be like looking into 
a magic mirror to see you, at work or at rest.” But by 
the very intelligence of his questions Vernon presently 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


233 


showed, that he knew more about Agnes, hundreds of 
miles away, than Single did about Rosamond under 
his own roof. Entering into all Agnes’s feelings as 
readily as he imparted to her his own, Ernest speedily 
dissipated any undefined dread which, since she had 
seen it at a nearer view, she had begun to entertain of 
matrimony. And when in a few — how miserably 
few I — days they had to separate once more and re- 
turn to work, in common yet apart, she bade him good- 
bye, recognizing that she had in him more to reverence, 
trust, and love, and for herself more alike to hope and 
fear, than she had ever known before. 


CHAPTER XXXII 

The next summer, Rosamond insisted upon Agnes’s 
coming to her at Newport ; and she did so for a week, 
longing and almost hoping to satisfy herself that Mrs. 
Single was really well and happy. Her letters had 
been uniformly uncomplaining and generally lively; 
but Agnes knew that, however matters might be, Rosa- 
mond had too much spirit to bemoan herself delib- 
erately on paper. Single had hired an expensive cot- 
tage for her; “And the Yan Rooselandts are here too, 
you know,” said she; “so it is something like old 
times, — as much like them as anything can be now.” 

“ Why, my poor Rosy, that sounds as if you were 
not feeling well.” 

“I am not; I never expect to be again.” 

20 * 


234 


A WENT WOE TIL 


“ But surely — surely Dr. Mixter does not say so of 
you.” 

“Ob, no ; I do not ask him. There is not much the 
matter. Come, let us take a drive and drive away 
care ; and in the evening, if you are not too tired, we 
will go to the hotel and look in for an hour or two 
at the hop.” 

“ Shall not you be too tired ?” 

“ If I am, I shall go.” 

“ But not on my account, I hope.” 

“No, dear, on your frivolous older sister’s account. 
I can’t give up all the enjoyments of life at my age. 
If I pay the quid pro quo, at least I have a right to 
the pro quo quid,’’’’ said Rosamond, laughing at her 
own Latin. 

But Agnes could not laugh. This was the first 
time that her sister had alluded to the mercenary char- 
acter of her marriage, since it took place. Agnes had 
tried, as Rosamond had desired, to forget all that she 
said at that time. The other crowding interests of the 
period had made this task of forgetfulness compara- 
tively easy ; and the younger lady almost hoped, 
against hope, that the young wife and mother herself 
had ceased to look upon her marriage as a bargain. 
Probably she would still have exercised too much 
good taste to speak of it as such, had she not been 
at this time in pretty bad company, namely that of 
Mrs. Etta Y. R. S * * * and her compeers. 

Bad company? That is a strong expression I see, 
as after writing it I read it ; and yet I do not see 
how, by changing it, to make it the truer. I am 
certain that I should think such company very bad 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


235 


for my young wife — if I had one. Nobody denies that 
the flock of goats on the left hand of the great Shep- 
herd will be a bad company, even though we nowhere 
read that they committed all the seven deadly sins, — 
though all that we do read about them is, that they 
did no good and were to be driven away into lasting 
fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 

This company, however, was not exactly what the 
polite world calls bad company; or Rosamond would 
never have brought her young sister near it. The 
members of it only approached together “ the brink of 
all we hate.’’ If any one was detected going over 
that brink, the others usually dropped him, or especi- 
ally her. But, as a company at least, they were not 
doing good. They were setting an example, to less 
conspicuous and not less ambitious people, of any 
amount of selfish and suicidal extravagance and dis- 
sipation, — if it is dissipation to dissipate health, means, 
time, and in a word life, in the mere pursuit of pleas- 
ure. They talked much scandal, hurting alike their 
neighbors’ reputations and their own characters. They 
envied one another and strove to make one another 
envious. But Rosamond loved Mrs. Etta S * * *, nee 
Yan Rooselandt, and loved excitement, and for their 
sake tolerated all the rest 

Single .difi not much enjoy it ; but he was not keen 
in reading character, and had besides a general notion 
that ‘‘whatever is [(i la mode'] is right.” 

After one or two trials, Agnes found that she could 
not bear it, particularly as there was no reason why she 
should. It jarred too much on her heart-strings, after 
reading Ernest’s letters and the public bulletins of the 


236 


A ONES WENT WOR TIL 


war, in the morning and afternoon, to go out in the 
evening and hear — such talk as she did hear when she 
went out. She was still in mourning, without and 
within, for her brother and her country, and in terror 
for her lover and her country day by day. Rosamond 
abroad did not need her and, much as Agnes loved her 
sister’s brilliancy and beauty, she could not enjoy such 
a display of them at such a time. Mrs. Single’s jewels 
and laces looked too inappropriate for becomingness 
when so many of her countrywomen, — in North, 
South, East, and West — were in widow’s weeds. 

Rosamond was one of those delightful hostesses who 
love best to have their guests do what pleases them 
best, and who let them see that they put no one out by 
doing it. Therefore she went her way and left Agnes 
in peace at night, to put the baby to sleep, to write, or 
to rest, and in the morning to rise whenever she was 
ready, and breakfast, if -she chose, with the forsaken 
Single. 

“I declare this looks homelike!” cried he, the first 
time he came in and saw her smiling at him, over the 
unusually comfortable meal which the cook had pro- 
vided in her honor. “ When I was a bachelor, I used 
to think it rather jolly to breakfast by myself ; but some- 
how a married man has to give up so much of his in- 
dependence sooner or later, that he wants a little 
domestic comfort to comfort him,” added he, smiling 
good-humoredly if somewhat ruefully at his own play 
upon words, through the steam of the coffee which 
Agnes had poured out for him in a heated cup, and 
sugared and creamed, as it proved, exactly to his taste ; 
— “especially,” he went on, “in such a homesick 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


237 


place as Newport. Not but what I am very glad, of 
course, to let Mrs. Single have what she likes and do 
as she likes, and be here if her health requires. It 
would never do to have it said that my wife wasn’t 
happy ; and something certainly did seem to be com- 
ing over her. People were beginning to notice it. She 
didn’t feel her oats at all as she used to; — that is, I 
meant to say, she was losing her vivacity. But now 
here am I idling, neglecting my estates, playing bil- 
liards, and killing time out of the best part of my life ; 
and I intended this very summer to commence my his- 
tory of the Lugdunensian Gauls. And how could any 
lady desire more than she had at Tusculum ? Agnes, 
is not this the exact definition of women: animals 
delighting in housewifery, finery, and infancy ?” 

“Of some women.” 

“Ha!” cried he, “doesn’t it include all, — not you?” 

“ ‘ Delighting in housewifery’ ? — no, I’m afraid not. 
‘In finery’ ? — no. I like your baby.” 

“ But don’t you think it includes Rosamond then ?” 

“ No,” repeated Agnes, hardly able to keep her coun- 
tenance at the impetuous gravity of the question; “I 
should think not precisely.” 

“ Ha 1” cried he again, in imitation of Dr. Arnold of 
Rugby; and he rose, and walked up and down the 
room with his hands in the pockets of his ornamental 
trousers. “Now you have given me a new idea ; but 
I wish you could go a little further and give me some 
suggestions as to what Rosamond would like, — if any- 
thing would make her contented at home.” 

“Ah, she should know that best ; I can only refer 
you to her,” said Agnes, startled at finding herself so 


238 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


nearly entrapped into meddling with her sister’s most 
private affairs. It was characteristic of Single, that 
the last person whose opinion he was likely to ask was 
Rosamond, even about her own affairs ; and this not 
because he thought her opinion likely to be foolish, 
for he was rather proud of her reputation for clever- 
ness, but simply because she was his wife. Sympa- 
thy, cherishing, companionship, — these were the chief 
things to which Agnes looked to make her more than I 
contented in the home of Vernon, should it ever be 
hers ; and the words had almost risen to her lips ; but 
supposing she had uttered them, she asked herself 
afterwards, what then ? Could a creature of such dif- 
ferent mould as Single’s ever teach himself to sym- 
pathize with Rosamond; and how could the compan- 
ionship of a person naturally so uncongenial as Single 
ever be made acceptable to Rosamond ? 

Poor Single was in a bad box ; and, if it was a still 
worse box for his wife, there is this to be said for him, 
that when they got into it his eyes were shut, and hers 
at least half open. He had no suspicion that it could 
prove a bad one for either He even intended to secure 
her happiness in it, so far as he could without making 
any sacrifice of his own ; and he expected to be able to 
secure her perfect happiness in it without making any 
sacrifice of his own. She, on the other hand, partly saw 
the dangers for herself, and left it to him to look out for 
himself. Still they now had alike the hard lesson to 
learn, that the pursuit of self-gratification is no substi- 
tute for that holy mutual self-devotion which the Chris- 
tian church guarantees to both parties in wedlock, and 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


239 


without which marriage is likely to prove a heavy 
burden, and heaviest to the wife. 

The more Agnes saw of Single, the more intolerable 
as a husband did she consider him, but yet the more 
respectable as a man ; for, though in a pretty narrow 
way, he was a conscientious and sincerely religious 
man. Agnes was at first alike amused and ashamed, 
to observe what a point he made of mortifying the flesh, 
on a Friday, with a particularly rich and high-seasoned 
dish of cusk d la creme, or rather heurre, and how 
apt he was to be peevish after it. But she soon began 
to suspect, and later was convinced that, though there 
was a good deal of form about his piety, there was some 
spirit in it too. 

The day but one before she was to have returned to 
her father, she slipped down two of the steps of the 
piazza at a time, in receiving from the carrier a letter 
that she saw in Vernon’s handwriting ; and she sprained 
her ankle. In order to be able to travel the sooner, she 
was advised by her surgeon not to attempt for a few 
days to walk or stand. A fixture thus in Rosamond’s 
drawing-room, she was an unwilling hearer one even- 
ing of rather an odd conversation. 

Rosamond had come in, unusually silent, from a 
twilight drive, rung for her maid to take her hat and 
shawl, and stretched herself on a sofa as if too much 
exhausted to talk. But, as she was doing altogether 
too much for her yet unrecovered strength and the 
weather was very sultry, Agnes was more sorry than 
surprised and let her alone, hoping she would sleep. 
On her husband’s entrance, however, she started up 
with renewed animation : “ My dear,” said she, ‘‘ I 


240 


A ONES WEx\ TWOR TU. 


hope this is is not true, that I have just been hearing 
about you from Etta S * * *.” 

“ I trust,” returned Single loftily, — (it was Friday 
evening,) “that Mrs. S * * * has nothing to com- 
municate respecting me, which my wife should be sorry 
to hear.” 

“ She says, that you have suffered yourself to be 
drawn into some of Mr. Yon Wiesel’s speculations in 
government contracts.” 

“ ‘ Suffered myself to be drawn in,’ my dear, is a 
rather peculiar mode of expressing it ; ” 

“ I don’t quote her expressions.” 

“ J^or do 1 quite perceive how the substance of those 
expressions should concern Mrs. S * * 

“Nor do I. On the contrary, it strikes me, Mr. 
Single, that, if the story is true, your wife should not 
hear it first from anybody else’s wife nor from anybody 
else but yourself.” 

“ Rosamond, you are nervous.” 

“ Yes, very ; if I were not, this would be enough to 
make me so.” 

“But why, my dear? — what possible — ?” — He 
checked himself with a glance at Agnes. 

Sitting in a window and not daring to ask to be 
wheeled from the room, lest that should look too much 
like clearing the ring for expected combat, she was 
talking to the baby in her arms, as fast and as loud as 
she could. 

“ Don’t he uneasy, Agnes,” said Rosamond, really 
too greatly unhinged to recollect herself or her accus- 
tomed good-breeding ; “we are not talking secrets. 
What Etta knows, Newport knows. ‘ What possible’ 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


241 


concern was it of mine either, you wished to inquire, 
I suppose,” said she, again facing the adversary. 

“My dear Rosamond, you are feverish I You are 
making yourself ill !” exclaimed Single, terrified at her 
rising color and unprecedented conduct. “ I must 
send for Dr. Mixter.” 

“Better send for Dr. Ruebrick,” said Rosamond; 
and then as, on his way to the bell, he paused to look 
at her in fresh horror, fully convinced that her reason 
was wavering, her sense of the ludicrous happily over- 
powered her other emotions ; she caught him by the 
arm and cried, — as well as she could for laughter, 
which he at first took for hysterical, — “ No. Stop. I 
do know what I am talking about. I beg your par- 
don. I was going too far. But do you remember 
what you said to Dr. Ruebrick, — on the first of Feb- 
ruary, 1862?” 

“I really — really cannot recollect,” said Single, 
utterly perplexed and scarcely reassured. 

“ In church ; — why, it was our wedding-day, don’t 
you recollect that ? — I shall have to send for Dr. Mix- 
ter for you.” 

‘‘Oh!— Well?” 

“What did you say to hkn, or rather what did 
he make you say to me, about all your worldly 
goods ?” 

“ My dear, if you are in your senses, you must see 
that this is going too far. The sacraments of the 
church are no matter for levity.” 

“I am sure I agree to that,” said Rosamond with a 
sigh. “ I mean that 1 think they are to be taken in 
earnest ; that is all.” 


21 


242 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“ You go too far. Those words are a mere form of 
course, and universally so understood,” 

‘‘Then I must have been in an error, indeed!” 
cried Rosamond waxing warm again. “I always sup- 
posed I was bound to obey. I always supposed the 
makers of the prayer-book were inspired saints ; but I 
cannot see that they were any better than impious 
hypocrites, if they chose only false and hollow words 
to put into our mouths at such a time. — If — observe, 
I only say, iff she added, answering less her hus- 
band’s exclamations than Agnes’s face of horror. 

“ Take care !” cried Single. “ Remember the un- 
pardonable sin ! I never said — you must not say — 
that they are false. I said that they were a form, — 
formal in the letter, — neither false nor hollow, of course, 
in the spirit.” 

“And their spirit is — what?” 

“ If you desire, I will consider and let you know. 
In the mean time, 1 desire that you will let them alone.” 

Rosamond held her tongue, and bit her lips till the 
red came through the skin. 

Single availed himself of the imposed truce, to march 
up and down the room and endeavor to re-collect his 
forces ; but while he mused the fire burned ; and pres- 
ently it broke out again ; “ I never heard of such a thing 
in my life! Suppose I had married an idiot.” 

“ I do not see how that supposition applies in the 
present case,” rejoined Rosamond. “ Or suppose I 
had married an idiot.” 

“ My dear,” said Single, coming to a halt, “ again I 
request that you will cease to excite yourself.” He 
resumed his walk and next, in spite of himself, his 


A ONES WFN'r WOR TIL 


243 


soliloquy. “ The idea that a man, by marriage, obliges 
himself to subject his financial concerns to the control 
of his lady 

Again Mrs. Single was not slow to take up the 
glove, and to convert the soliloquy into a dialogue : 
“ Control is not what I lay claim to, but merely reason- 
able consultation. If you had consulted me, I should 
simply have told you that Mr. Yon Wiesel was not to 
be trusted beyond the nearest corner with anybody’s 
interests but his own. After that I should cheerfully 
have left you to control your concerns without any 
assistance, especially his.” 

“ Mrs. Single, what can you mean ?” cried Single, 
coming once more to a sudden halt. “What should a 
young lady, like you, know about business men in 
their business capacity ?” 

“ Only what everybody knows — but you, it appears, 
— that Mr. Yon Wiesel is very keen and is not very 
scrupulous. He has never forged nor stolen, I believe, 
— at least, he has never been found out at it.” 

“ Rosamond, you astonish me beyond expression ! 
Why have I not always seen you, yourself, ever since 
we have been here, treat and receive him as an old 
friend ?” 

“Not at all, guileless sir. You have always seen 
me treat and receive him as an old dancing-partner, 
and a very good one, You will never, unless by your 
own commands, see me receive him as my partner in 
friendship any more than in finance.” 

Single looked dejected and thoughtful. Rosamond, 
having said her say, said no more to him, but asked 
Agnes if her arms were not tired with the baby ; when 


244 


AGNES WENTWORTH, 


he with unusual attention rang the bell for the nurse, 
and wheeled his sister-in-law’s chair to the door of 
her chamber without bringing her more than once or 
twice into contact with surrounding objects. 

Agnes was so bitterly homesick that, as she rested 
her head against the window-sill, she could scarcely 
keep back her tears. “ Oh, if 1 ever do get back to 
papa,” she tried to comfort herself by repeating, “ I 
hope I shall never have to come here again ! — Rosa- 
mond is possessed,^’ she went on : “ It is more than a 
year since she was herself ; and, till she is, I cannot 
bear to see her. But when will that be?” 

In the course of half an hour Rosamond sent Elise, 
her French maid, with tea, flowers, and Miss Yonge’s 
last novel. In an hour or two she came herself, 
refreshed by her own tea and toilet ; and how like 
a Peri she looked, in her translucent arsenic green and 
diamonds, with deadly diamond powder too, twinkling 
in her hair ! “ Here I am, in the character of Madame 
de Brinvilliers. I dare not come near you, darling, 
for fear I should poison you,” cried she, taking her 
stand in the middle of the chamber and tossing a kiss 
to Agnes ; “ but that you may sleep in peace, and I, 
in such peace as there is for the wicked, I must assure 
you before I go, that you have seen me for the last 
time in the character of Mrs. Caudle, and that Mr. 
Single saw me in it this afternoon for the first time ; 
as you might have perceived by his amazement. He 
means well. I assure you he is a good husband as 
husbands go. But if there is such a place as purga- 
tory, and breaches of the Golden Rule are punished in 
it, I believe, as sure as there is justice in heaven, that 


A G^''FS WENT WO R TH. 


245 


all married men will have to do penance there meta- 
morphosed into married women.” 

There was not much more to be said about the mat- 
ter on either side. But Agnes remained with an im- 
pression upon her mind, that Rosamond had erred, not 
so much in telling her husband that she was dissatis- 
fied with his conduct toward her, as in not telling him 
so sooner. She had kept back the rebuke till it turned 
sour. Moreover it appeared to Agnes, that Single 
might reasonably complain of a breach of the Golden 
Rule on Rosamond’s part toward him, in the habitual, 
brooding, chill reserve which, armadillo as he was, 
had finally penetrated him with a sense of her constant, 
unaccountable, unalterable discontent. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Before Agnes stayed with her sister again, she 
heard of another little niece and then a nephew. Upon 
the birth of the latter, Rosamond for once expressed 
something of the pride and pleasure natural to a young 
mother. “He is a remarkably fine little fellow,” pro- 
claimed her first note: “Everybody says so; and his 
papa is delighted with him. [Did that new delight on 
Mr. Single’s part, explain some of Mrs. Single’s new 
satisfaction ? Agnes hoped so.] I long to show him 
to you, Agnes. \_Him ; — each of the little sisters had 
been it.'] But if, with such an inducement before you, 
you are such an unnatural aunt as to put us [ms; — it 
21 * 


240 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


used to be we;] off this year with one only of your little 
pitiful visits, make it when you please. As the youth 
is very youn^ for a traveller, we shall postpone going 
to the sea-shore so long this season, that I stipulate for a 
late return to the North River. You would find Newport 
quieter in the autumn than the summer ; and the boy 
is better worth seeing every day. When you come, I 
depend upon your sketching him for me instead of knit- 
ting. I will make amends to your patriotic avarice 
with specie enough to buy bales of soldiers’ socks.” 

Agnes was glad to defer her visit. Rosamond’s 
constitutional vivacity always came out in her letters; 
so that, as we have hinted, they were scarcely a trust- 
worthy index of her state of mind. As she never stated 
anything that was not true however, it was certain that 
she was, at last, pleased with her baby. But it was 
not equally certain that she was yet, on the whole, con- 
tented with her lot or with her husband ; and still, if the 
conjecture was an illusion, it was so pleasing an illusion 
that Agnes was in no haste to put it to the test. 

Her father was even less in haste to have her do so. 
As the time finally drew near, he owned to her, trying 
to laugh at himself, that the idea of her forsaking him, so 
often, turned him into an old woman and a prophetess: 
“ Mark my words, my dear ; you will sprain your ankle 
again, or lose your baggage,, or roll down an embank- 
ment with a whole train of cars at your heels ; and then 
what will your Mr. Vernon say to me ? You had bet- 
ter just sit down here at my table, and write these 
monopolizing persons one of your pretty notes, — if you 
leave off those new-fangled tails to your ys, perhaps 
they will be able to read it. — Tell them your old father 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


247 


can’t spare you, but that they are nomadic people, and 
it can’t make much difference to them which way they 
go, provided only they are on the road with everything 
they want safe in trunks where they can’t get at it. 
Tell them Boston is the worst place in the world to 
leave, and the best place to come to, and so they had 
better let you be here, and come and stay here with 
you, and let me see that grandson.” 

Agnes did gladly sit down and write her pretty note 
accordingly; but it was answered by a few scrawled 
lines, strangely few and simple, and very sad, from 
Single. 

My good, kind sister,” he wrote, “ if you can come 
to poor Rosamond at once, I am sure you will, when 
you hear that we have lost our little son by a terrible 
accident. You can comfort her better than I.” 

As Agnes’s hackney-coach stopped at the cottage. 
Single came out to receive her, eagerly but with none 
of his former flourish of manner. His head was bowed, 
as if either to shun the light or to keep her from seeing, 
that his eyes looked as if he had cried them almost out. 
“ Will you come with me into the drawing-room a mo- 
ment?” asked he in a subdued tone. “Dr. Mixter is 
having a few last words with me ; and it may be well 
for you to hear them ?” 

“Oh, is Rosamond ill?” 

“Yes, dreadfully.” 

“But oh, not dangerously ?” 

“ He tries to make me think not. But — ” He gave 
Agnes his arm and led her in, hurriedly yet with an 
unskilful effort to make no noise, which contrasted 
strongly with his usual loud disregard of his wife’s re- 


248 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


pose. “Miss Wentworth, — her sister,” — said he to 
the physician. “ Mrs. Single might probably be impa- 
tient to see her, if informed of her arrival. I suppose it 
will be safest to wait till to-morrow.” 

“ By no means. Let Miss Wentworth see her as 
soon as she pleases, and unannounced.” 

“But if she wishes to refer to the calamity, — 
then — ” 

“Then by all means let her,” said the Doctor, pull- 
ing out his watch. “ My dear sir, I have no time to 
tell you the why nor the wherefore. In one word, we 
have to suit the treatment to the case. In the present 
case, I repeat to you, the more natural the conduct of 
everybody around the patient is, the sooner she will 
probably return to her own natural state. The most 
serious part of her disorder is grief. Let grief have 
its way, and it is usually a self-limited disorder. Try 
to cut it short, and you never know what you may be 
doing. I shall call twice a day for the present, and 
watch your wife most carefully; and, if danger arises, 
be assured you shall know it.” 

A little reassured, Agnes hastened toward Rosa- 
mond’s chamber, while Single followed the Doctor out, 
perhaps to expostulate with him. Rosamond’s door 
stood ajar. Agnes heard within a low sound of cry- 
ing^ — that of her eldest niece, she supposed, — mingled 
with a laboriously lively chattering like that of a nurse 
trying to divert a child. According to directions, she 
pushed the door open and was walking quietly in, when 
in spite of herself she stopped short and stood aghast; 
for the crying was Rosamond’s, and the chattering that 
of her maid, who sat beside her and wiped her eyes, as 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


249 


she lay in bed passive and regardless of everything ex- 
cept her own misery, 

“Oh, Miss Wentwort,” exclaimed Elise, rising, “you 
must not come here I” 

Agnes, however, stood her ground, and again ad- 
vanced ; while Rosamond looked round, took her hand- 
kerchief from the servant and covered her white 
swollen face with one hand, put out the other slowly for 
her sister, and stammered with a manifest struggle for 
self-recollection and self-restraint, “ Go down, Elise. Oh, 
Agny, — stay with me; — and keep — them all — away!’’ 

Agnes calmly dismissed the maid, desiring her to go 
and tell her master that she herself would stay by Mrs. 
Single for the present. Then she sat down by the . 
bedside and, still holding the poor burning hand in 
both of hers, pressed it to her bosom and softly wept 
over it. 

As her tears fell, Rosamond’s abated. “ My little 
boys I — my little boys! — ” she twice began to say, 
with an appealing, piteous look, to her sister ; but find- 
ing herself each time checked by uncontrollable sobs, 
she changed it into, “lam — too tired. — If you — lay 
down — with me, — and took me — in your arms, — per- 
haps — I could rest. — Keep them all — away !” 

Agnes rang the bell, gave orders that no one should 
come to the door again till summoned, — as Mrs. Single 
was going to sleep, — locked it, laid the key in Rosa- 
mond’s sight upon a table, and stretched herself beside 
her. 

Rosamond smiled faintly, nestled toward her, slept 
some time, and awoke comparatively composed and 
evidently desirous to maintain her self-control before 


250 


AGNES WENTWORTH, 


her sister. She made no attempt to recur to any agita- 
ting subject, nor any objection to Agnes’s unfastening 
the door, and was concerned to find that she had had 
no refreshments since her journey. 

It was several days before Rosamond quite broke 
down again ; but it was the first time that she trusted 
herself again to try to tell Agnes the story of her ill- 
ness, and her sorrow. This was much as follows, only 
more interrupted : 

“ Oh my little Horace ! my little angel ! — my little 
victim ! Oh, Agnes, you never saw him ! He was more 
like you than like anybody else; but oh, he had a look 
in his sweet little face such as never was in any other 
face but a seraph’s ; and if he had not had an unnatural 
mother, we should have had him now ! He had a new 
nurse. She brought me a good recommendation from 
her last mistress, Mrs. L * * * ; I had known her ever 
since we first came to Newport, and thought her a 
friend. — The girl was pretty and playful with the 
darling. He liked her; and so I felt safe. I felt well 
then, — better than for years, — and starving for a little 
pleasure while I could really enjoy it. The night be- 
fore, I was out late ; and the day — that day — I over- 
slept myself and hadn’t time to kiss him. I was going 
out with a yachting-party. He saw me running by his 
nursery-door, and put out his hands. — He had the very 
prettiest way of throwing up his hands when he wanted 
you to take him, — everybody noticed it; it was just 
like the fluttering of a little bird that wants to fly. 
But I hurried off for fear that, if I held him for a min- 
ute, he would cry for me. When I came back at twi- 
light meaning to make up for it, there were two chaises 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


251 


— doctors’ chaises, — at the door ; and I heard screams 
— his screams. I flew up to the nursery. His father 
met me and told me not to go in ; but I did, and caught 
him in my arms from the surgeons. He did not want 
me any more ; even his mother hurt him then; and I 
had to lay him down. His nurse had left him in his ‘ 
little waggon by the side of the road. She often left 
him so, — the other nurses told when it was too late, — 
and let him cryv — My darling to cry, and his mother 
not help him ! — A loose horse came rushing along and 
trampled him. His little praying hands were trampled, 
too. He screamed and gasped and sobbed, till thej 
told me it was nothing but cruelty to let him sufifei 
any more ; and they gave him opium ; and then he 
screamOd himself to sleep and slept himself to death. 
While I was standing over him I was taken ill ; and sg 
1 lost the other little boy I might have had to make 
some amends to his father, if not comfort me. Oh, 
little Horace would have loved it so, and played with 
it and been so happy ! I have had a letter since from 
Baltimore, — ” rambled on poor Rosamond, — “a letter 
from the wicked woman who sent that nurse to me. 
She wants me to forgive her, — as if I ever could I She 
wished to get rid of the girl herself, because she flirted 
with her brother. She thought it might .be most his 
fault, and the girl might be steady enough out of the 
reach of temptation ; and she wanted to get rid of her 
peaceably; and so my little Horace was the victim; 
and I have broken my marriage-vow and disobeyed 
my husband, and killed one of my own children my- 
self; and how Ernest can possibly allow you to asso- 
ciate with such a bad woman, is more than I can un 


252 


A ONES WENT WOR TIL 


derstaud. Bat I know my mind is very much broken. 
Before you came, Mr. Single and Elise both treated 
me as if I was insane ; and I dare say it is all an illu- 
sion of mine that Ernest was a very mindful lover. 
But if I have one ray of reason left, I can tell you 
this ; Bad company is a bad thing for anybody ; you 
may think you can keep it and keep clear of the con- 
sequences ; but you can’t; and so, on your own account, 
I advise you not to have too much to do with me.” 

“My dear Rosamond, you will break my heart if 
you call up such dreadful ideas. They say that, 
owing to poor mamma’s constitution, we are both of 
us likely to be a little ‘ nervous,’ now and then, if we 
are ill ; but Ernest scarcely needs to remember how 
good you were to me when I was fanciful, to be eager 
to have me do my little utmost for you. And Dr. 
Mixter told Mr. Single only yesterday, that it would 
be the greatest mistake to lead you to imagine that 
your brain was ‘ not as sound as a nut.’ As for Mr. 
Single, I believe there is nobody in the world more 
full of pity and sorrow for you ; I believe that blaming 
you is the last thought in his mind.” 

“ That only shows, then, how much too good he is 
for me.” 

“ Or how much better than ever you are going to be 
to him.” 

“No; I can’t. The thing is impossible. I’ve tried, 
— nobody ever tried harder than I, — to be a good wife; 
and you see what it has all come to, and what it has 
brought me to. Three or four years ago, I was a free, 
vigorous, intelligent, honorable human being. If I 
made a resolution or a promise, I kept it ; — I could keep 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


253 


it. Now, you see, I am a broken-spirited, imbecile, 
lying slave. I never ought — I never meant — to say 
what I am saying now ; and yet here I am saying it. 
You warned me, Agnes; and I ought to have listened. 
Now be warned by me : There is no slavery like a 
wife’s slavery. Other slaves, if they do not like bond- 
age, can run away; and, if they are caught, they can 
but be killed, which is by no means always a misfor- 
tune. But, if you are a wife, there is no escape for 
you but into the second death. And then to be solemnly 
bound to love your tyrant ! — Oh, my God ! What will 
become of me ? What will become of me 

Agnes recollected at this juncture, that the Doctor 
had given her leave to be natural. Finding no other 
reply so natural as kisses and tears, she bestowed 
both freely upon Rosamond ; and Rosamond was again 
softened and appeased. 


CHAPTER XXXIY. 

Another day, as Agnes sat at work beside her 
sister, she said, with the piteous look that often seemed 
to seek for comfort where none was to be found, “ If it 
had been both the little girls, it would not so much 
have mattered ; but little Horace had a chance for 
happiness, — unless some cruel, heartless, calculating 
creature married him for his money.” 

“ Dear Rosamond, so have your little daughters a 
22 


254 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


chance for happiness. God will send it to them, if He 
sees it to be best for them.” 

“ ‘ If fhey deserve it,’ you are too kind to add. But 
they cannot be better than you are, Agnes.” 

“Ah, you do not know how my will often struggles 
with the will of heaven !” 

“For Ernest and Walter, — no wonder; but still 
you are not happy.” 

“ I hardly have time to think whether I am or not ; 
— frankly, no ; not while the war lasts nor while you 
are ill.” 

“ Poor child ! If I had not grown as selfish toward 
you as I always was to everybody else, except poor 
Aunty, I should remember that your own burden was 
heavy enough of itself.” 

“ But if I could only lighten yours, I should feel 
the stronger to bear mine. At any rate, I am glad 
to have lived ; and so will my dear little nieces be.” 

“ If they miss happiness ?” 

“ If they aim at nobleness,” said Agnes, forgetting 
herself now for the little nieces. 

“ ‘ Nobleness’ ? — for women ?” 

“ I think there must always be nobleness within 
reach, where self-devotion is ; and surely self-devotion 
is within the reach of every one who has a God, a 
family, and a country.” 

Rosamond feebly shook her head : “You are speak- 
ing a foreign language to me. You speak it very 
sweetly ; and I suppose I ought to understand it, but 
I do not.” 

“How long have Mr. Single’s eyes troubled him?” 
asked Agnes after a pause. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


255 


“ His eyes ? I do not know. I did not know they 
ever troubled him ; — did I ?” 

“Then I hope it is only some passing thing; but 
they look a good deal inflamed; and, ever since I have 
been here, we have had the blinds closed at dinner.” 

“ That light dining-room, — with all the sunset glare 
from the water ! There ought to be some blue shades. 
Oh, I wonder when I shall leave my chamber,” said 
Rosamond, tossing restlessly ; — “ I wonder when we 
shall get away from this dreadful place.” 

“ I can order the shades for you ; shall I ?” 

“Do, dear, this very day; and ring now, will you 
please ? — Elise, tell Mr. Single that I should be glad 
to speak to him if he is not engaged, — before the Doctor 
comes.” It was the first time since her sister came, 
that Rosamond had shown any interest in anything or 
living person else. 

Single came presently, groping as much as seeing. 
Agnes rose to leave him her chair by the bed. “ Don’t 
go, nurse,” Said he ; and she seated herself again, by 
the window. “ What did you wish for, my dear ?” 
said he softly to Rosamond, — “to tell me you were 
feeling a little better to-day ?” 

“ I am going to try to be better, Horace ; I have 
tried everybody’s patience quite long enough. But 
about your eyes, my dear ? I am afraid you are suffer- 
ing, with no one to take care of you.” 

“ Who told you anything about them ? I did not 
mean you should know,” cried Single ; and Agnes, in 
the window, shook in her shoes. 

“ Let me see. I am afraid they are only too able to 
speak for themselves. Don’t you remember the old 


256 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


song ‘ That Tell-tale Eye’?” returned poor Rosamond’s 
faint voice, trembling with its effort to be playful. 
“But what is the matter?” 

“ I took cold in them, I dare say; and” — 

“And you cried, I suppose, for poor little Horace,” 
said Rosamond, heaving up a sigh that seemed to 
come from below the source of tears. Single mur- 
mured something which Agnes did not hear. Rosa- 
mond went on: “ ‘jPor we’? — 0 Horace, why should 
you do that?” 

“ My dear, who could have helped it ?” 

“ Ah, you must not do so any more ; I am not worth 
it. Oh, no, no I We will talk of something else. But 
when the Doctor comes you will see him, I know, to 
please me, and ask him how soon he can have me well 
enough to go back to Tusculum. The soft green shade 
of your groves will be better for us both than all this 
broad glassy glare, that I never wish to see again. — 
Stay with us now, cannot you ? Turn the easy-chair 
round with the back to the window, and lean back and 
shut your poor eyes ; and you shall hear how sweetly 
Agnes reads.” 

Rosamond’s constitutional kindness of heart rose 
fully in the ascendant, assisted by gratitude and re- 
morse ; and poor Single, who had never in all his life 
been so petted before, was, — after a wretched week or 
two spent in his idle, lonely room with alternate attempts 
at reading and consequent pain and fright, — thankful, 
as he had never imagined he could be, for feminine 
companionship, care, and kindness ; while he felt the 
unexpected relief that there often is in giving in, 
when one has already given out. 


A GNES WENT WOR TIL 


257 


But when Dr. Mixter came, he did not aflford much 
added relief. He took Single to another room to ex- 
amine his eyes, regretted that he had not sought ad- 
vice earlier, and mentioned one or two palliatives, but 
ended by refusing to assume the responsibility of the 
case, and by proposing to bring in consultation a dis- 
tinguished New York oculist who, by good fortune, 
was taking a week’s vacation at Newport. The oculist 
came, looked grave in his turn, and recommended that 
the patient should at once return home where he could 
be codstantly within reach. 

Single in consternation answered that, in his wife’s 
present state, it was possible neither for her to travel 
nor for him to leave her. 

The oculist therefore consented to give some general 
directions, and to co-operate with the physician by 
letter, but added that he agreed “entirely with Dr. 
Mixter’s opinion,” — that the case was “not without 
danger, nor one to be treated to advantage from a 
distance.” 

All this Rosamond inquired into, and would know. 
She besought Single to go without waiting for her ; 
but he could not make up his mind to do this ; nor 
she hers, quite, to drive him to it ; for the local treat- 
ment to be employed was painful, the regimen de- 
pressing, and the abstinence from all use of the eyes 
complete. There was nothing for her, but to get well 
herself as fast as she could, — a business that was per- 
haps not a little forwarded by the new, and outward, 
direction given to her thoughts; while he was con- 
stantly making his escape to her, blindfold, from the 
dark cell in which he wms expected to be in solitary 
22 * 


258 


A ONES WENT WOE TH. 


conBnement, and clinging to her presence with a mani- 
fest fondness and dependence, which appealed to her 
naturally strong affections as nothing in him had ever 
done before, — nothing but the recent discovery of his 
compassion for her suffering, under a trial which he 
could understand. 

Agnes was to have stayed to see them and their 
retinue safe back to the North River; but old Mr. 
Wentworth had an attack of influenza which hurried 
the “ Sister of Charity,” as poor Rosamond called her, 
back to Boston. She was scarcely more sorry fbr the 
cause than for the consequence ; but it could not be 
helped ; and Elise was capable, efficient, and a good 
servant when she had anybody to keep her in her 
place, which her mistress now did con amove. 

Mr. Wentworth’s illness was not alarming, but con- 
fined him to his chamber for the unprecedented term 
of six days, and to the house a week longer. Before 
that week was over, Agnes had the comfort of receiv- 
ing a few lines in Rosamond’s own hand, inform- 
ing her that she was leaving Newport, — had reached 
home. 

Agnes waited eagerly for further letters. They 
came duly,— letters not altogether unsatisfactory, char- 
acteristic in some tMngs, and yet so deeply sad that, 
without the signature, it would have been hard indeed 
to recognize them as those of the once playful Rosa- 
mond: 

“ Dr. Lens gives us encouragement beyond what I 
dared hope. There is no longer any great danger for 
Horace’s eyes, except that of a long period of weak- 
ness. Thank God, I am not to have the loss of my 


ACrNES WENTWORTH. 


259 


husband’s sight to reproach myself with, in addition to 
all the rest! There is enough besides. * 

“We are thankful to be in our own home again. 
I did not know that I could ever like it so well. It 
gave us a touching welcome, in its tender autumn 
loveliness. The place seems to me, indeed, only like a 
beautiful cemetery without little Horace ; but, till I 
can be dead, lam best content to be buried alive, — 
and to have had my sins go before me to judgment, 
I sometimes think, if that judgment could but have 
fallen upon me alone. ♦ ♦ * 

“ The stillness and solitude are rather a refreshment. 
Since your company and papa’s are not to be had, we 
are best suited for the present with none but our own. 
My limbs recover strength rather slowly ; and Horace 
carries me out in his arms, every pleasant morning, to 
the summer-house in the wood ; and there I read to 
him. He says it reminds him of a partnership be- 
tween a blind man and a lame man, in a little story- 
book he had when a child, by which remark you may 
rightly judge that he is beginning to regain his spirits. 
Poor fellow, he is so good to me I He does know how 
to return good for evil. — One thing I will tell you, 
Agnes, because I am sure it will please you. One 
day, before we went out, I caught him in the library 
straining his poor eyes over a book ; and when I took 
it away I found it was the Book of Common Prayer. 
He had been, I discovered, in the habit of using it every 
day, from his boyhood up, and could not now do without 
it. Ever since, I have been his chaplain. Don’t think 
me a hypocrite for telling you ; and don’t imagine for a 
moment that I can enter into the spirit of it, at all as I 


200 


A ONES WENT WORTH. 


ought; — such things do not seem as if they could be 
meant for such a one as I; — though I suppose, — per- 
haps, by and by, I may come to feel, — that it would be 
nothing but presumption in us, sinful mortals, to meas- 
ure the mercy of God by our deserts. * * ♦ 

“ Since this bleak November weather set in, Horace 
has had a little fireplace and chimney built in our 
little out-of-door study. He has grown too fond of our 
reading in it to give it up, and calls it ‘Fair Rosa- 
mond’s Bower.’ At first he, considerately and char- 
acteristically, proposed for my benefit only novels, 
poetry, and the newspapers ; but when he discovered 
that it would make no difference to me, he relapsed 
into history and even Latin. I seem to myself some- 
times to be turning into a specimen of Milton’s daugh- 
ters ; but I hardly believe Milton was ever so merciful 
as Horace is to false quantities. Sometimes I become 
interested, — sometimes sleepy; in either case, it serves 
to pass away the time ; and in the latter, Horace takes a 
stroll while I take a nap. We like to have the children 
led within sight and hearing of usi» in their walks and 
plays; and I hope he begins to find some consolation 
in them. Our loss has made him an attentive father, 
and me at least an anxious mother. In my blindness, 
1 must still fancy that the poor little girls would be 
safer where their brother is ; but I dread, unutterably, 
pain for them or for myself any further shock or 
change. * * ♦ 

“Of an afternoon, I love best to sit in the bay- 
window and watch the river and think, how still it 
looks under its dreary, gray mantle of ice, — as fixed as 
life, — but how fleet it is, and how surely on its way to 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


261 


that ocean which, though we cannot see it, is so 
near, — or to gaze at the clouds and foolishly, fondly 
try to cheat myself into imagining that I can make 
out a single little cherub’s form among them.” Poor 
Rosamond I 


CHAPTER XXXY. 

Soon after Agnes received the letter from which 
the last extract is taken, Mr. Wentworth came home 
earlier than usual before dinner-time, and called her. 
She ran down all the way into the hall to meet him, 
fearing that something had happened; how all the 
women feared that, all through the war I 

“Agnes, can you remember hearing anything about 
a Mr. Von Wiesel, — when you were at Newport?” 

“ Yes, papa, I do,” said Agnes, after a moment’s 
recollection. She told what she remembered, and 
asked “ Why ?” 

“ AVhy, I am very sorry to hear it; because that 
ffoes to confirm a story I heard iust now on ’Change.” 

“Oh. what?” 

“That a person of that name had been swindling, 
and failed for a hopeless amount, involving others very 
seriously and, among them, Horace Single.” 

“ Oh, how things do go on happening when once 
they begin 1 Poor Rosamond ! Poor Horace ! — If 
we could only hear I — It would not do to telegraph ?” 


262 


AGNES WENTWOBTH. 


“ No ; it is not for us to give the alarm; and besides 
such news comes fast enough by mail.” 

And such news did come fast enough by mail. Sin- 
gle had lost almost all that he had. It is not neces- 
sary to go into the details. The history of knavery 
and crime is neither pleasant nor profitable reading. 
If my readers, as many readers do, disagree with me 
in that opinion, I can only refer them to the Newgate 
Calendar. 

“ There is one comfort, however, that we may make 
sure of,” said Agnes, after turning the letter of ill 
tidings over and over, in vain, in search of any other. 
“ When all is told it will be as clear as noonday, that 
Horace has been only cheated, — no cheat.” 

Mr. Wentworth winced, as if at hearing an echo of 
his own thought : “ My dear child, I am thankful to 
have you think so. I would not breathe — I would not 
admit — a suspicion of his being anything in money- 
matters but a most high-minded man. Still — I have 
seen much less of him than you have, you remember ; 
and his views upon public affairs were so very extra- 
ordinary — ” 

“ I know ; but, papa, I really think his politics came 
of the same cause as his other misfortunes.” 

“And that was ?” 

“ His being so very superfi — so unpenetrating, if 
there is such a word, — so very easily taken in, espe- 
cially by whatever or whomsoever appeared to him to 
be in fashion.” 

“ He would be considerably surprised to hear you 
say that, little miss,” said Mr. Wentworth, in spite of 
himself “smiling at grief.” 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


263 


“ Very considerably, indeed ; but that again is the 
very last proof of his confiding nature, — he cannot 
even distrust his own wisdom.” 

“ Pour out my tea, you naughty witch ; and don’t 
insult the fallen.” The little adroit touch of congenial 
caustic had raised Mr. Wentworth’s spirits for the 
time. 

Her sister’s next letter confirmed Agnes’s impression : 
‘‘I think,” wrote Rosamond, “that, except on my ac- 
count and the children’s, it would be a positive relief 
to Horace to give up everything, he is so shocked to 
find what use Mr. Yon Wiesel has been secretly making 
of his name to draw in others. But the creditors are 
so impressed with his honorable conduct, and see so 
clearly how his unsuspecting honesty has been imposed 
upon, that they insist on his reserving a small portion 
of his income, — enough, we hope, with strict economy 
to feed, shelter, and clothe us, — until he finds some- 
thing that he can do.” 

“ What can he do ?” cried old Mr. Wentworth, hold- 
ing up both hands ; “ what will become of them ?” 

“Papa,” said old Mr. Wentworth’s comforter, “it 
would take a good while for me to tell you all the 
reasons I have for thinking so ; but I do think they 
may do better than ever — in the end. Nobody, at 
any rate, who had only seen Horace when he was 
having his own way, would have believed he could be 
so gentle and patient and good as he was when his 
sight was failing, and Rosamond ill, and their poor 
little baby just dead ; and Ernest says, ‘ you can never 
tell all that there is in people, until you have seen 
them put to all the tests.’ ” 


264 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“ Very satisfactory to you and Ernest, no doubt,” 
answered the old gentleman with a groan. “ You are 
young enough to be Utopian. But, at my age, one can- 
not but observe that people must live, and that they 
need something more substantial than theories to live 
upon, or than patience and gentleness either.” 

^‘How would you like to have them all come here 
for a good long visit, in the first place, while they are 
settling their affairs and plans ?” asked Agnes, plunging 
with her wonted docility at once from the theoretical 
into the practical. 

“ Very much indeed. Write and tell them so.” 

Agnes did write and tell them so, most promptly, 
emphatically, and eloquently. She was not refused. 
Rosamond would come with the children, in a fort- 
night; and Single, as soon after as he could possibly 
wind up the more pressing of his affairs. 

Meanwhile almost every hour that Agnes could 
spare, from her letters and her work for the Sanitary 
Commission, was at first spent in preparation for her 
guests. Rosamond must have the chamber which she 
was used to, and Ernest, the one that was his in the 
dear old times, when — if — he should come. Agnes 
assigned her own to her little nieces, that they might 
be near their parents, and for herself would take Wal- 
ter’s. If anybody else had it, his things would have to 
be disturbed; and that, she could not bear. As she 
went up and down and to and fro, with her grave and 
tempered hospitable gladness, so akin to sorrow and 
so mingled with it, she could hardly believe it was so 
short a time — in years, — as it was, since she hurried 
and scampered through those selfsame passages, in 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


265 


siQiple ecstasy to make ready for the selfsame sister. 
People lived very fast then ; and many a young crea- 
ture grew old in the war. How few years it was since 
Agnes rejoiced at Rosamond’s coming, in the thought 
of being herself taken care of, petted, and amused ! 
Her great hope now was, to be able to cherish, soothe, 
and enliven. 


CHAPTER XXXYI. 

At the end of a week, everything was in readiness, 
even to the blue shades in Rosamond’s windows. It 
was Agnes’s “day [to be manager] at the Sanitary 
Rooms and she began her business. “ What orders. 
Miss Blake ?” said she with official conciseness, to her 
subaltern who was opening despatches at the desk. 

“Not many. Pickles wanted at Annapolis, — all 
that we can spare, — rollers for Wise’s Ford, three 
barrelfuls, — five hundred army blue shirts for Fort 
Jefferson,”— 

“Is that all ? — But that warm place ?” 

“For the flannel shirts? — They say the changes in 
the weather give the men inflammations,” 

“ Whose requisition ?” 

“ Head-quarters’ at Washington.” 

“ Oh, well. I suppose we have them here ?” 

“Yes, and more ; and here is a good box.” 

“ Then let us fold and pack while our arms are 
fresh 


23 


266 


AGNES WENTWORTH 


“ That gentleman wishes to speak to you, doesn’t 
he, Miss Wentworth ?” 

Agnes reared her high golden head out of the box 
over which she was stooping, recognized Edward 
Arden in his surgeon’s regimentals, and hastened for- 
ward to welcome him: “Dr. Arden, how delightful! 
But you are not at home on sick-leave ?” 

“ No, on furlough.” 

“ How enchanted Clara must be !” 

“Yes. Can you come out and speak to her? — She 
is at the door.” — 

“ Certainly,” said Agnes ; and she turned at once 
toward the door, wondering that Clara did not come in. 

“Hadn’t you better put your cloak on ? — It is cold.” 

Agnes threw her cloak about her, and again was 
making for the door, silenced by something strange in 
his look and manner, when he asked, “Are the rest of 
these yours?” and, taking her bonnet, scarf, and gloves 
from the hook where they hung, overtook her with, 
them, and offered his arm. 

She accepted it mechanically. “Papa?” asked she 
looking up in his face and pausing on the threshold. 

“ Oh, no, my dear.” 

She made one rush out of the hall into the carriage, 
and seized Clara by both hands: “ Clara, you will tell 
me! Rosamond?” 

“ No, dearest; but we thought you and Mr. Yernon 
would wish to be together ; and Edward would take 
you. He hopes the best; but” — even as she spoke 
Clara unclasped her hand ; and Agnes saw the awful 
despatch within it, white and red like a messenger of 
blood and death doling out the words: 


A 0yji:s WENT WOR TIL 


267 


" HATCHERS .RUN MARCH . 25TH . ERNEST . VERNON . 

WOUNDED . RIGHT. LUNG . SERIOUSLY.” 

Oh, it had come ! It had come at last! The black 
shadow that had lain upon her path so long, that in a 
dreary way she was becoming accustomed to it, had 
turned into substance now. There was no doubt now 
— no longer hope or the chance of escape. Agnes 
covered her face and leaned back. She seemed to hear 
a soundless tumult through the silence, from which 
came the words “Vernon has fallen! — has fallen !” and 
nothing more. In her darkness, she saw the flash, — 
the ball on its way. She saw him drop, and the tram- 
pling crowds close over him with no hand to help ; and 
she saw no more. 

Then she became sensible that the coach was turn- 
ing round and carrying her away; and Edward Arden 
spoke from the seat opposite to her, — more like him- 
self, now that the miserable business of telling her the 
news was over : “ You must not give him up. Miss 
Agnes. I do not, I assure you ; and I have seen more 
of this sort of thing than you.” 

Agnes uncovered her ghastly face, and looked dumbly 
at him and then at the despatch. 

Ilis eye followed hers and answered it: “‘Seri- 
ously’ ; yes, of course ; any wounds in the lungs must 
be called serious ; but men get over them and laugh 
with the scars for many a long year. Besides there is 
often a good deal of hurry in the exploration of such 
cases on a battle-field. Why, I have known a compli- 
cation consisting merely of a tooth knocked out, a kick 
in the ribs, and a very harmless little chronic bronchitis, 
reported as fractured rib with perforation and internal 


268 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


hemorrhage. We will start presently, if you say the 
word, to patch him up between us; and then, if he 
is not all right by next autumn, one of your Sanitary 
ladies will have to be detailed for special service, may- 
be, and’ take him to Europe.” 

Agnes received so much comfort as this: Edward 
Arden did not despair of finding Ernest alive, or he 
would never think of taking her to Ernest, He would 
save Ernest if skill and care could save him. At all 
events, he would do the best to get her to Ernest in 
time to soothe his last moment.s, — to hear his last 
words. Notwithstanding, to speak of thanks — to 
speak of anything but one, — seemed impossible. She 
could only grasp Dr. Arden’s hand, and ask, “ How 
soon ?” 

“‘How soon’ can we start? — As soon as I have 
been to Mr. Wentworth’s office, to speak to him, and 
put a few little good things together for Vernon. By 
the way, — do you observe? — He must have directed 
for himself where the telegraph should be sent, — else 
nobody would have thought of addressing it to me. 
He knew I was to be here. I saw him last week ; I’ll 
tell you about it on the road,” said Edward springing 
from the coach at Metcalf’s apothecary-shop, where he 
had ordered the coachman to set him down to procure 
the first of the “ little good things” he had promised, — 
namely opium. 

Clara took Agnes home and, persuading her to lie 
down and save her strength for the journey, seleeted 
some necessaries and packed them for her in small 
compass. Then she knelt in silence by the sofa, fold- 
ing the poor girl’s clasped hands within her own. 


A ONES WEXT WOE TIL 


269 


Agnes knew that Clara was praying with her and for 
her. That sympathizing silence did more for the 
tumult of her soul than any uttered sympathy could 
have done. It almost seemed to her that she was at- 
tended by one of the visible angels of Gethsemane ; 
and she struggled with herself to say, “ Thy will be 
done,” as fervently as she said, ‘'0 my Father, if it be 
possible, let this cup pass from us !” 

She was to have need of all the composure she had 
gained. Mr. Wentworth came home, hotly and inco- 
herently to forbid her going: “My child, I beg that 
such a thing may not be so much as mentioned to me ! 
You do not know where you would find Mr. Yernon 
nor how. Let him by all means be brought here ; my 
house is, and has been, always open to him. You can 
be in no condition to think for yourself; it is a case in 
which your friends must judge for you. Unquestion- 
ably you ought at least to wait, till we hear something 
more definite. Miss Arden will tell you, that the plan 
I have heard something of would involve a great deal 
of fatigue and exposure, and, in one word, (for I must 
speak plainly in order to be understood, and to bring 
the discussion to an end), that it would be a most 
unsuitable and improper expedition for any young 
lady.” 

Clara did not tell her so ; she had never done an un- 
conventional thing in her life, because no unconven- 
tional thing had ever come up as the right thing to be 
done by her ; but Herman Arden’s sister knew, that 
where the choice lay between what might be blamed, 
and what would be blameworthy, there was no room 
for hesitation. She had at once proposed herself in- 
23 * 


270 


A ONES WENT WOR TIL 


deed, — in her brother’s hurried consultation with her on 
the arrival of the telegraph, — as Agnes’s companion ; 
but he had answered, that, in the then state of the 
country and difficulty of obtaining conveyances, two 
persons might go where three could not; and speed 
was everything. There would probably be some good 
women already in attendance on the wounded, under 
whose wing he could place Agnes ; but, if otherwise, 
Vernon’s need of her would be all the greater ; and 
Edward himself would send for Sanitary nurses, or, if 
Vernon lingered, there would be time to make what- 
ever arrangement appeared the best to Miss Went- 
worth’s family. Therefore Clara just now made no 
answer. 

Agnes felt forsaken. She got up and went to the 
window and looked into the street where the rain was 
falling. Her brain was ready to turn. The widening 
rings, spun by the falling drops in the standing pools, 
seemed like whirling wheels in some horrid machine 
set in motion to carry her further and further from him. 
What would that “ something more definite” be, for 
which she was to wait? — Delay ! when it might make 
all the difference between her seeing Vernon soon or 
never ! She had never before disputed her father’s will ; 
she dared not do so now lest she should do so too des- 
perately. Clara came and put her arm round her. She 
looked round and said, “ Clara, Clara, if I had mar- 
ried him when he prayed me to, it would have been 
my right to be with him now.” 

“ Dearest child, you did what you thought right; and 
it must come out right,” said Clara softly, and then 
aloud, “ I hear my brother’s voice below, Mr. Went- 


A GiVES WE.YT WON. TIL 


271 


worth. Will you have the kindness to take me down 
to him 

Mr. Wentworth half offered his arm mechanically, 
then dropped it, went to Agnes, and kissed her before 
he went. 

For the first time his caress was unreturned. Agnes 
was stunned. Only when she saw that they were 
leaving her, she said, “Clara, — a letter; — ask Dr. 
Arden to wait for it.” 

She tottered to her little writing-table and drew it 
to the window, — the same at which she had written 
her childish note to beg the dead Walter to come and 
take care of the dying Ernest. She dipped the pen in 
the ink; the words would not come. How could she 
tell him that she abandoned him in his extremity — him 
who to her was faithful unto death ? — that she left him 
alone at the last, to cope, perhaps in vain, with doubts 
and terrors which from their dormant state she had 
quickened into life ! How could she tell him ? Not at all. 
There are some limits to obedience — in the Lord. 

Clara had laid her outer garments ready. She threw 
them on. The little valise stood by. She caught it 
up. Her limbs were nerved anew. She flew down 
stairs, and encountered Clara hastening towards her 
from the library-door: “Clara, I am going. — Tell Dr. 
Arden I am going. — Tell papa I am gone. — I must 
go*” 

“Darling, you are to go; — here he is to bid you 
good-bye; and the coach is at the door.” 

“ Oh, Clara, God bless you I Oh, papa, God keep 
you! Dear Clara, take care of him till Rosamond 
comes.” 


272 


A ONES WEN T WOE TIL 


“Indeed I will, and write to her too ” Agnes was 
gone. 

Mr. Wentworth had grown more yielding as well as 
more timid since Walter’s death. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Then came days and nights of travelling and pray- 
ing, praying and travelling, with a constant roar of 
wheels, and frequent ringing of bells and whistling of 
steam, and feverish drinking of tea and occasional 
efforts at taking food and sleep. That was almost all 
that Clara could ever learn about it from Agnes, ex- 
cept that Edward sometimes spoke very kindly to her, 
and usually, as kindly or still more so, let her alone ; 
but in fact the only times that Agnes ever tried to tell 
about it, she quite broke down helplessly — a most un- 
common thing for her, and shed in a river the tears 
that were pent up on the journey. Edward, on his 
part, informs me that he never saw a woman behave 
'so well, except his sister Clara ; but as the good be- 
havior appears to have consisted chiefly in gentleness, 
stillness, and unflagging endurance, there is not much 
to be said about it until they reached the camp at 
Bell’s Creek. 

Edward left Agnes hard by, at a loyal farm-house, 
to lie down for an hour and get a little rest if she could, 
while he went to head-quarters to make inquiries about 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


2Y3 


their further way. She found it impossible to keep her 
eyes closed so near, and yet out of sight of, Ernest, and, 
being chilled, rose and seated herself by the kitchen 
hearth. It was growing shady when Edward came 
back, but by the fire-light she saw that he was looking 
perplexed and anxious. 

“ Whal have you heard cried she starting up. 

Nothing about our friend, — nothing at all. What 
I have on my mind is the question, whether you had 
not better pass the night here and move to-morrow with 
the troops.’^ 

Agnes’s lips parted as if for an exclamation ; but she 
suppressed it, and only asked “ Because 

“Because we are, so to speak, at one horn of a hol- 
low half-moon held for the government, and Hatcher’s 
Bun is at the other. In order to reach Hatcher’s Run 
to-night, we must go — on horseback, and you must be 
pretty nearly knocked up already — through thirty 
miles of the enemy’s country.” 

Agnes wrung her hands and looked into the fire for 
a moment. Then she turned, he says, “ like a doe at 
bay:” “ Then, dear Dr. Arden, I ought not to ask you 
to go ; and for Clara’s sake I do ask you not to go ; 
but I must go. Oh,” cried she, hanging upon his 
arm with both her clasped hands, and lifting her large, 
tearless eyes to his face, “only find me a trusty guide; 
and God bless you for all, — for that more than all the 
rest I” 

“ But, my dear girl, your father.” 

“ If anything happens to me, Rosamond will take 
care of poor papa. ” 

“ But what would he say ?” 


274 


AGNES WENTWORTIL. 


“ What could he, if you told him the fact, — that you 
could not help it ? — Oh, Dr. Arden, while we are talk- 
ing, Ernest may be dying !” 

Miss Wentworth, you are of age, are not you 

“Yes, — twenty-three.” 

“ Can you ride and shoot ?” 

“ I can ride — ” 

“ Oh, of course, — I remember !” — 

If you will show me how, I can shoot.” 

“ I will go” — 

“ Oh, not you I” 

“ I should go, at all events; they want surgeons. — 
I will go and see if I can get you a practicable 
horse.” 

He went; and again Agnes sank passively down 
into her seat. A dull heaviness was, little by little, 
mastering her frame more and more. But presently 
a wild fear struck her: Dr. Arden, thinking her un- 
reasonable and unmanageable, might elude her and go 
on without her, especially if there was much difficulty 
in finding what he would consider a tolerable “lady’s 
horse.” She flew after him and caught him, before 
he had gone sixty yards from the door, herself almost 
too much out of breath to gasp, “ Dr. Arden, it is un- 
derstood? — I am going. — With you or without you — I 
am going.” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Edward, with a twinkle in his eye 
in the midst of all his compassion, “ do not fear. You 
have made yourself perfectly understood. If it is a 
possible thing, I will take you with me. Otherwise, I 
shall at least come and tell you. Now go back and 
keep yourself in a state to go.” 


AGjSTA'S WENTWORTH. 


275 


Agnes regained the fireside and her seat, and prob- 
ably dozed ; for she was scarcely aware that five 
minutes had passed, when she was startled by the 
trampling of galloping hoofs, and opened her eyes on 
an incessant bobbing of horses’ and horsemen’s heads 
against the fading sunset in front of the window of the 
cottage, which, from the sound, seemed to be sur- 
rounded. Covering herself by the shutter, she peeped 
cautiously out ; but her sight was too dim to distin- 
guish the color of the uniform of the riders. She was 
making the best of her way up stairs, in search of the 
farmer’s wife, when to her relief she heard Edward 
Arden’s voice without, in conversation with another 
which sounded familiar and began, ‘‘ How are you. Dr. 
Ned ?” 

“ Paul Dudley, by all that is lucky ! How came you 
here ?” 

“ On four legs as usual.” 

“ Very good ; but have you eight legs to spare ?” 

“ To keep your hand in at amputations ? — No, thank 
you ; I am not a centipede ; and, not being upon the 
surgical staff, I preserve my natural humanity amid 
the horrors of war.” 

“No, but, — just come in here, will you? — Miss 
Wentworth is with me on our way to the wounded at 
Hatcher’s Run. How shall I get her there ? Can 
you let us have saddle-horses ?” 

“One, I can, — General Winder’s. Two ?— I wish I 
could ; let me see. — I’m afraid I can’t. — Really, Doctor, 
I think it would be very much better on all accounts 
for her to jump up behind you. That is the arrange- 
ment I should make for one of my sisters, in the cir- 


276 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


cum stances. Miss Wentworth is a bold rider, 1 know, 
and a good one ; but suppose we were to be attacked 
and she, separated from us in the dark 

“ I see.” 

“ 1 detail myself and my men for escort duty. It 
comes within the scope of my instructions. I’ll tell 
my orderly — a sterling fellow — to ride at your heels, 
keep his eye on her, and take care of her if anything 
goes wrong with us. There’s nothing I should like 
better than to volunteer myself as her squire ; only she 
might not like it so well, because my age isn’t equal 
to my discretion ; and besides you know. Doctor, in 
case of an encounter, I couldn’t oppose so broad a front 
to the enemy.” 

“Aha! Even at your age, I should have been 
ashamed to be so deficient in — muscle.” 

“Muscle, is it? — I was afraid it might be a case 
of what I have heard you call fatty degeneration. — 
Well, you should know best. May your shadow never 
be less. But, Doctor, wouldn’t Miss Wentworth let 
me have a cup of tea with her before we are off again ? 
I haven’t seen a lady for a month ; and I want to know 
when she saw my sister Rose.” 

Accordingly Agnes came down from her watch- 
tower, and in common gratitude renewed, as best 
she might, an old acquaintance with the gay young 
cavalier. 

Then the horse, — a huge creature, luckily, as Dr. 
Arden’s “ muscle ” had now been for some years in a 
course of rapid developement, — was led curvetting up 
to the door, and provided with an extempore pillion 
carefully strapped on. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


2n 

‘‘A magnificent rebel,’’ said Colonel Dudley, bestow- 
ing on the charger a pat, which he endeavored to 
acknowledge by a playful nip; “ he has only one trick 
— effectually provided against too, by the present ar- 
rangement, — that of running away ; and that we taught 
him ourselves before we took him.” 

Edward mounted; and Colonel Dudley helped Agnes 
up after him, exclaming, “After all, Dixie has little 
more than an average pair to carry. If Dr. Arden 
is slightly plus, Miss Wentworth, you are minus.^^ 
Agnes’s tall form, naturally slender, was now light 
indeed. 

Then, at last, the farmer’s wife had done pinning 
the young lady’s shawl round her to serve as a riding- 
skirt, and wishing “ thar was any ke-ars for her to go 
in,” and being thanked; and “Mount!” was cried in 
the young colonel’s military vojce ; and he and his 
men were in the saddle also, before, beside, and behind 
her. He turned his horse’s head and rode in to her for 
one last word: “You are commander pro , Miss 
Wentworth. Do we ride slow or fast?” 

“ If you pleasd, fast— very fast.” 

“ Certainly. Send forward your orderly. Dr. Arden, 
at any time, if Miss Wentworth desires a halt.” 

Fast and very fast they rushed on, tilting up and 
down through the dark, led by a loyal negro who 
knew the country. It was all like a very strange 
dream to Agnes Wentworth. Space and Time had 
been abstractions to her before, as to the rest of us ; 
now they were the most real and pressing realities in 
the sensible world, — two malign powers, they had 
started out into horrid life, forever growing and widen- 
24 


21S 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


ing, to hold her oflf — to throw her back — from the 
death-bed of her dying lover. The night was cloudy 
and moonless ; and little was to be seen but undefined 
motion through dim, transparent darkness. Nothing 
was to be heard but the tramp of hoofs and the clank 
of sabres ; except once when they swept too near a 
new encampment in its sleep, and heard the waking 
sentinel’s tardy challenge and random shot fired after 
them in vain. Agnes was scarcely conscious now of 
any weariness. Every nerve was strained to its utmost 
tension. Her only fear was that the enemy might cut 
them ofi* from Yernon, or that, reaching him, they 
might reach him too late. Their violent, bewildering 
speed was a relief, so far as anything, in shaking 
thought out of her brain ; and no halt was called for 
by her unto the end. 

That end came even sooner than she expected; so 
that, when the horses suddenly stood still, and Colonel 
Dudley came to help her alight, she said, ‘‘Muk we 
stop here ?” 

“ If we stop at Hatcher’s Run,” answered he, laugh- 
ing. “ You would not want to be too hard upon 
Dixie ; see how he foams at the mouth. But if you 
have not had enough of gentle exercise, he shall be at 
your service again to-morrow.” 

Agnes heard only the first words. As he left her 
on her feet, she staggered, sank down on an over- 
turned basket in the farm-yard where she found her- 
self, and, by the light of a lantern hung over a barn- 
door, looked up into Edward Arden’s face. 

“Colonel Dudley will wait here with you a few 
minutes,” said Edward, dismounting in his turn. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 219 

“ while I go into this hospital to make inquiries. I will 
not stay long.” 

He went, came out in a very few minutes, and led her 
into the barn with him, saying softly as he did so, “ He 
is living, and, we hope, going to live. The wound ap- 
pears to be not very extensive in the lung ; and the 
ball came out. He is under a dose of opium now ; — a 
heavy one — and may not know you at first.” 

No more was said. They had to pick their way. 
The barn was dimly lighted by lanterns hung here 
and there from the beams. The floor was covered 
with hay; and the hay was thick with outstretched 
men sleeping, writhing, dying, or dead. Some lifted 
their heads in turn to look eagerly and wistfully at 
Agnes as she passed, — perhaps for mother, daughter, 
or wife, whom they should never see again ; — and as 
she approached she looked in turn at each. Which 
was Ernest? Where? She could not see. She could 
not ask. She could only keep on passively as she wuis 
led, — and Edward kept steadily leading her on toward 
the furthest corner, nearer and nearer, — towards a 
ghastly, gasping man, with the features of a corpse, 
sharp and shrunk, and no expression but that which is 
the family likeness, in a manner, of those who want to 
breathe and cannot. 

Why must she be brought so close, to look upon 
such misery? Oh, that could not be Ernest I 

But it was. He was muttering fitfully to himself. 
He did not know her. She glided in between him and 
the wall, sat down at his side and took his careless 
hand in hers. 

Edward Arden rolled up behind her a great cushion 


280 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


of the hay, and said soothingly, “He will recognize 
you by degrees ; and that is best. It will excite him 
least. His life depends on quiet.” When she looked 
round again for him, he had left them together. 

Looking down again to Yernon, she saw that his 
open glassy eyes had fixed on her and with apparent 
satisfaction, though without surprise and almost with- 
out intelligence. “Angel of light,” he murmured ; and 
then his heavy lids sank. He breathed longer breaths; 
and they were all that showed he was not dead ; and 
she feared he would be, before he could know that she 
was with him, or she could know how it was with 
him. Yet she dared not rouse him, — dared not even 
shed the tears of which her heart seemed full, lest she 
might rouse him. The agony of that suspense! Was 
he to pass away from under her watching gaze, into 
the dark uncertainty of the unbeliever’s doom ? 

He was not. Before the surgeons, on their midnight 
round, came to him again, Agnes saw his eyes open 
and fix themselves on her once more, with a look of 
greater and increasing consciousness. At length he 
murmured again and beckoned. She bent her ear over 
him and just caught the word “Agnes.” 

“ Yes, dearest.” 

“Agnes, thank God for me — I thank God,” he stam- 
mered, appearing to rally all his strength for one last 
effort to give her the assurance she had prayed and 
longed for, — “in the name of — of our Lord Jesus 
Christ — for — for now — I know I believe in him, — by 
this — this death — no leap — in the dark — a climb up 
into the light — Thank God and you!” 

“ Dearest Ernest, I understand,” said Agnes in her 


A GNES WENT WOR TIL 


281 


sweetest, clearest tone. “ That is enough. I do thank 
God. He has given you totne and me to you; and 
we are Christ’s ; and Christ is God’s ; and neither life 
nor death can ever part us any more.” 

He smiled, and was still for a few moments in the 
repose of utter exhaustion ; but probably, in the cloudi- 
ness of his mind, he doubted whether he had fully ex- 
plained himself; since presently he began again, almost 
inaudibly but with an eagerness that was touching to 
see, “ I believe in God the Father Almighty — and in — 
and in Jesus — ’ ” 

It was hard — it seemed cruel to hush his last words; 
but Agnes rose to her knees beside him, laid her finger 
beseechingly on his lips, and caught the confession 
from him: “ We believe in God the Father Almighty, 
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord ; who was, 
by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, — ” 

He evidently followed her with ear and eye to the 
end of that most ancient of the Creeds which is called 
“The Apostles’,” and, at its close, whispered “Amen.” 
Before he recovered himself enough to try again to 
speak, the surgeons, almost to her relief, reached him 
and repeated his dose of opium and their injunctions 
of silence. 

Again he was silent and soon again unconscious; 
but the silence was not what it had been before. The 
great question between them had been answered. She 
felt to her heart’s core the truth of what she had said 
to him: it was enough. For eternity he was hers; 
and it seemed to her that eternity for them was already 
begun. Now that the long tension and suspense of 
three years were over, — that she had no more hope of 
24 * 


282 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


life nor fear of the second death for him, — she felt so 
worn, so weak, so ill, that she could not imagine she 
should long surWve him. It was enough for the future 
that he was safe, — under him the everlasting arms, — 
and for the present, that she had reached him and could 
sit upon the floor where he lay, with his head upon her 
knees and her hand upon his temple, where she could 
feel that the pulse still fluttered and beat. So the night 
wore away in a trance of exhausted and deathly peace, 
with the lanterns burning and waning, the attendants 
coming and going, and the wounded dozing or dying. 

At length two or three cocks crowed. Next a dog 
barked ; and a babble of human treble voices was heard 
approaching ; and one of the great barn-doors opened, 
letting in a dim, white, triangular wall of morning twi- 
light across the place, and two or three women with 
a pail in each hand. They were Western Virginia 
farmers’ wives, and came to bring milk, coffee, tea, and 
beef-tea, with a tin dipper floating on the top of each. 

Edward Arden dragged himself drowsily up out of 
the hay in which he was at last yielding to a morning 
slumber, administered a dipper ful in turn to Vernon 
and to Agnes, clasped the wrist of the former, said to 
the latter, “His pulse is no worse — rather better per- 
haps, considering the time of day,” and relapsed into 
his nap. 

The women came and began to press her to return 
to breakfast with them ; but a glimpse of the face to 
which she gently pointed, hushed them, and soon sent 
them away. It looked still more deathlike by day- 
light, — much more like death than life. 

But when Dr. Arden came again on his regular morn- 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


283 


ing round, he was not so easily disposed of as the 
women. As Agnes would have returned, after giving 
place to the examination and dressing of Vernon’s 
wound, he met her on the way with the speech, “ Now, 
my charge, I have good news for you ; but as soon as 
you have heard it, you are to go to a good, warm, 
quiet room which Mr. Vernon’s head-man has, by my 
orders, found for you. You have there to eat, or, at all 
events, drink a good breakfast, and then go regularly 
to bed for six or eight hours whether you sleep or not.” 

“ Dr. Arden ! How can I ?” 

“ In the first place, because Mr. Vernon is very pro- 
perly anxious about it. The dressing has soothed 
him ; his man there will watch him ; and, unless he is 
opposed or disturbed, he will probably go to sleep too, 
at once, as he ought.” 

Agnes looked and saw a trusty, intelligent, yeomanly- 
looking person, whom she had not noticed before, sit- 
ting motionless at her post. Arden offered his arm. 
She felt obliged to take it, but still hung back: “Dear 
Dr. Arden, you know I would not give you any need- 
less trouble, — I would keep out of sight if you thought 
I must, — but — ” 

“But Mr. Vernon is doing well.” 

“ Oh, Dr. Arden !” 

“ But he certainly is — as well as such a man can do 
with such a wound. It looks better. Dr. Chopart says, 
than it has ever done before ; and bis pulse I can 
answer for, myself; — with some variations, such as I 
should have expected, it has on the whole improved 
since we have been here. In the circumstances, it was 
safer that the shock should not pass off suddenly.” 


284 


A ONES WENT WOR TIL 


“ But his breathing ?” 

“ Bad, — as usual in such cases ; — but growing easier, 
as he says himself. He has more than an even chance 
now, we think. You see that I am telling you the 
whole truth.” 

“ But if — there is a change while I am gone ?” 

“ I shall be here ; and you shall be called at once. — 
Don’t knock yourself up, my dear girl ; that’s the rock 
that most clever women’s work splits upon. — There are 
some national nurses, though, expected here to-day; , 
and if you are down with typhoid fever, perhaps we 
can take care of Mr. Yernon without you.” 

Agnes smiled a smile that brought the tears into his 
eyes, and yielded. 

He rewarded her by adding, as soon as he could, 
“You will see the improvement in him at intervals, 
better than if you were watching him all the time ; and, 
if things go as I strongly hope they will, you will soon 
want your strength for carrying him home to complete 
the cure in Boston.” 

“ Things” did “ go,” that day, as Dr. Arden hoped. 
When Yemen’s obedient nurse returned in the after- 
noon, refreshed by rest and food, she found him some- 
whM refreshed likewise, and pleased to see her so, 
breathing less like a dying man, and looking more like 
a living one. She had given him up, and received him 
again at the hand of the Lord. Yernon was not to 
die — not yet. 

Meantime the volunteer nurses had arrived. One 
of them proved to be an intimate war-acquaintance and 
friend of Dr. Arden’s. A charming Quaker matron 
from Philadelphia, she was in age, character, experience. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


285 


and station, as suitable a protectress as could be de- 
sired for Agnes, and immediately adopted both her and 
Ernest as her “ children pro tempore;’’ while Edward 
Arden joked, grumbled, dressed, and operated, made his 
fellow-creatures merry and made them well with equal 
success, and was after his clever old-bachelor fashion 
the life of the hospital barn. 

Day by day the hope for Yernon grew stronger, and 
the fear for him grew less. Agnes could leave him at 
night with less and less anxiety, and meet him in the 
morning with livelier and livelier joy, to work not only 
for him, but under his eye for the wistful sufferers 
around him. Neither of them was altogether ill pleased 
with their having this little taste of service in common ; 
but it was not many weeks before they were better 
pleased still to have Yernon lying in his old place in 
the library in Beacon Street. 


CHAPTER XXXYIII. 

What talks they had there; — for Ernest was now 
allowed to talk in moderation and to listen at discre- 
tion ! — Their mutual love, in the short time when they 
were there as lovers before, was too anxious and too 
sad to be loquacious. 

“ Ernest,” said Agnes, one afternoon at twilight, 
“ I never quite understood how it was, that you came 
to be so very fraternal as to consult Rosamond before 


286 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


you offered yourself to me, by this fireside, three years 
ago, about this time of day.’’ 

What was your hypothesis ?” 

‘‘ I do not think I shall tell ; I believe it was not 
worth the telling.” 

“ It was not a true one, you may be sure ; Miss 
Wentworth the first had taught me some home-truths, 
on a former occasion. I was not grateful to her then; 
— perhaps I am not now on quite all accounts ; — but 
you may have various reasons to be so. In the first 
place she instructed me, that it was neither generous, 
nor indeed quite honest, to try to persuade a young 
gentlewoman to be one’s wife, unless one had the 
means to maintain a wife. I did not think you were 
likely to consider, or able to judge, whether I had or 
not. Supposing you should be inclined to smile on 
my suit, I did not wish to take advantage of unsus- 
pecting innocence. Therefore I took the precaution to 
state the amount of my present revenues to your wiser 
sister, who pronounced it sufficient for you. You think 
you could possess your soul in peace to brew my tea 
in a plated tea-pot, and drink your milk out of a pressed- 
glass tumbler?” 

Agnes’s eyes sparkled: “ Oh, how nice! It is so 
tame to do, and have, everything exactly like one’s 
neighbors I It will be like ‘playing keep house’ again, 
which I used to think such fun, and having, what I 
used to long for in vain, somebody near my own age 
to play it with me. — Indeed,” she added more thought- 
fully, “I hope I am not extravagant, nor altogether 
inexperienced now. Papa says, that for the past three 
years, while prices have risen so much in general, I 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


287 


have done a good deal for him in keeping his household 
expenses within bounds ; and now I mean to grow 
not only economical but practical. Mrs. Tibbets knows 
how to do everything ; and I shall set her to teach 
me.’^ 

“ She has my kingly consent to teach you as much 
as you choose ; but I hope you do not propose ' always’ 
to ‘practise what you know,’ — at least in Mrs. Tib- 
bets’ line.” 

“ Do you ? — in earnest?” 

“As my name is Ernest.” 

“ But why ?” 

“ First, it is not necessary. Secondly, you would 
not like it. Thirdly, it would take work away from 
poorer women, who can do such work only and not the 
higher work that you can do. Fourthly, it would 
separate us too much. Fifthly, — are you tired so soon 
of painting, Agnes ?” 

“No, indeed; but you will soon paint again; and 
it ought to be enough for me to watch you and sympa- 
thize with you, dear, dear Ernest.” 

“And now am I to turn flatterer?” asked he with a 
kind of meaning archness. “ Take care, Agnes.” 

Her color rose a little : “ Ernest, I do not under- 
stand. ” 

“ When women turn sycophants, men generally pay 
them — with flattery. Agnes, I propose to wed an 
artist — not to slay an artist. Your imagination is 
loftier than mine — ” 

“Oh, ‘take care, ErnesV!^' 

“ It is — and more fertile ; but not to have more exe- 
cution and artistic savoir'-faire than you, I must hava 


288 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


been an idler and a dunce in Italy, which in the worst 
of times, I never was. I do not seek to throw all the 
drudgery of our united lives upon you, and keep all 
the beauty to myself. Be my partner in art as in all 
things. We will be a pictorial Beaumont and Fletcher.” 

“ Or a Tate and Brady,” suggested the naughty girl 
in the joy of her heart. 

“ Or a Sternhold and Hopkins,” returned he, paying 
her back in her own coin. 

“Do you know, Ernest, that — in this very room, 
when I was only eleven years old, — it was you who 
first made me an artist?” 

“Do you know, Agnes, that in this very room, 
when you were only eleven years old, — it was you 
who first taught me that art, to be true, should be hal- 
lowed to and by the great Artist, — then first, after- 
ward many a time — that a high Godward loyalty 
should be to art as the soul is to the body?” 

“Do you know, Ernest,” said she, in a very low 
timid tone, “ that it was you who ensured faith to me ?” 

“ Indeed, I do not, dear. How could that be ?” 

“It was the little book that you lent me at Wash- 
ington, which first gave me a faith that I dared think 
about, and could rejoice in with my whole grown-up 
mind and spirit. When some doctrines, in which I 
was brought up, were preached to me before, I sup- 
posed they were a real, essential part of the Christian 
revelation; and so I stifled down my reason that it 
might not revolt at them ; but that was growing harder 
every year. It might have grown too hard at last,” 
added Agnes with a shudder. 

“You do know, Agnes, that it was your firm- 


A GA US WUJVT WOR TIL 


289 


ness, with your love and your influence altogether, 
which, under God, earned faith for me.” 

But oh, Ernest, that night at Hatcher’s Run ! — 
That waiting before you roused to your confession of 
faith I” — 

“And it was your presence that roused me ; without 
that, I believe I never could have rallied.” — 

“ Why did you never tell me before ?” 

“ I could never be certain enough before, that I 
should not be cheating you, — that I was not cheating 
myself, while your hand was to be the reward of my 
faith. Then I fully believed myself dying; and Death 
is disinterested. But without that confession, should 
you have despaired of me ?” 

“When I felt as I do now? — Oh, no. But if you — 
had not recovered, how should I ever again have felt 
as I do now ? Such days of darkness follow such a 
loss! One’s very soul cries out for every — all — full 
assurance, — the seal of Christian faith set upon Chris- 
tian deeds. But if you mean to ask me whether, — 
with the nearer, clearer views of God and the Saviour, 
which you have brought to me, — I think that they 
could treat any helpless, unwilling unbelief with 
severity, I answer that I have little fear of that — of 
anything. Despair is struck out of life.” 

“ But do you see then — I begin to — that we have 
been playing into each other’s hands almost all our 
lives ?” 

“ So may we then to the end of them.” 

“Else marriage would be no wedlock.” 

“ Only a mockery of it, — a frightful mockery I But 
now, dear Ernest, you really ought to rest; and, if you 
25 


290 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


will, I am going up to help Rosamond put the little 
girls to sleep, and then bring her back with me to play 
Chopin to you.” 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

The library looked bright, homelike, and somewhat 
like old times again in the evening after tea. Old Mr. 
Wentworth, only a little more bent and hoary, sat over 
the newspapers in his accustomed place, with the “ drop- 
light” silvering his thin, pale hair. Rosamond and 
Horace Single, — in his blue spectacles, — were again 
under the chandelier by the piano. At present, how- 
ever, she was neither musical nor wicked, but looking 
benign, dignified, and thoughtful, reading letters to. her 
husband and discussing them in a low voice with him. 

Their new intimacy might be the more closely ce- 
mented by the fact that they had only one pair of 
“ available” eyes between them. Those which came to 
Single by birth, he was as yet permitted to use only 
for a few minutes daily and for large print. He was 
accordingl}^ dependent upon the conjugal orbs for nearly 
all his letter- writing and letter-reading. It was natural 
to him to talk of whatever he was thinking about to the 
person nearest; and thus a great deal of conversation 
and information about their common alfairs now fell to 
the share of his wife. lie was day by day more im- 
pressed with, and surprised at, her sense and discre- 
tion ; though after all she confided to her sister, that 


AGNES WENTWORTH, 


291 


they were, as to business, “little better than a pair of 
babes in the wood,” and that her counsel at the best 
usually amounted “ only to advising him to take ad- 
vice.” 

“Was not there a note besides?” asked he, on the 
present occasion, with the eagerness of a petted in- 
valid, as Rosamond perused and folded up the last 
letter. 

“Yes, dear, — for me from Etta Van Rooselandt.” 

“ Oh.” — The time had been when Single had coolly 
opened any enclosure to his wife that came in his 
way. 

“ It was scarcely meant for any one but me; but 
it brings good news ; and — if you will promise to think 
so, — you shall see and hear some things there are 
in it.” 

“ I will try, if you would like to put me to the 
test.” 

“ In the first place, here is a present for you.” 

“ Ten thousand dollars I — From her ?” 

“No, dear — from her cousin Rosamond. Etta has 
been so kind as to sell my diamonds for me. Now you 
will go on with your oculist, and not try to work until 
he gives you leave.” 

“ Oh, Rosamond, to what have I brought you !” 
cried poor Single, covering his face with his hands. 

Rosamond gently pulled them down again: “Dear 
Horace, I thought we agreed not to care any more for 
such trifles. Do you know that I am thirty years 
old ? — almost a middle-aged woman ? — Is it not time 
for me to put away childish things ?” 

Single caught up a sheet of Chopin, — to shade his 


292 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


eyes, — and kissed her behind it. Again tne impartial 
jnirror made its reflections. 

In the mean time Vernon on the sofa, and Agnes 
beside it, held further conferences. As Rosamond 
crossed and left the room, to inquire into a cry in the 
nursery, his look followed her. “ What a beautiful 
picture she is — to the eye!” said he, thinking aloud. 

“To the mind too,” said Agnes, with sisterly sen- 
sitiveness, “at least to me who know her thoroughly.” 

“Yours is the most beautiful picture to my mind 
and eye both,” said he, turning quickly to gaze at her; 
“ and it is the most extraordinary thing, — I did not 
know what I was about while I was doing it, — I find 
I have painted you, too.” 

“ Why, Ernest ! How was that ?” 

“ That is more than I can explain. But if Mrs. 
and Mr. Single will come up with us to the old studio 
to-morrow, you shall all see the picture, — I want to 
find out whether others will recognize the likeness, — 
and I will tell you the history of the thing, so far as it 
has any. It is the only original one I painted with 
any ardor or success, the last time I was in Italy. I 
unboxed it and ascertained the likeness myself only 
this afternoon.” 

Agnes was surprised, but most of all gratified, for 
Vernon’s still evident artistic pleasure in gazing at 
her sister, though she shared it, had sometimes in 
spite of her made her a little sad She did not fear 
that his loyal heart, once pledged to her, would ever 
wander from her ; but she would — how gladly ! — have 
been in all respects what he preferred. “ Do you 
know,” she resumed, “ that you made me a little 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


293 


curious by something you said, an hour or two ago, 
about Rosamond? How should she ever have given 
you any lessons, except in economy, by which I could 
profit? The real Rosamond, — the one Rosamond to 
ward me, — is generosity and honor itself ; but I have 
fancied sometimes from things you have let fall, that 
it was only a doppelgdnger of a Rosamond that you 
knew.” 

“It may have been; but, at any rate, I have to 
thank her — and thank heaven — for keeping from me 
any other to give me you.” 

“And is that all I have to thank her for ?” persisted 
Agnes mischievously. 

“Ingrate I If you cannot let bygones be bygones, 
I must own that Miss Wentworth, the doppelgdnger, 
gave me frankly to understand, — and not without 
cause, that was the worst of it I — that it — was — not 
disinterested, in short, in me to invite my lady-love to 
find her bliss in sacrificing all her tastes to mine.” 

“Oh, Ernest, I beg your pardon!” cried Agnes, 
blushing in a manner to atone for a worse offence than 
her little curiosity. “ But how she must have misun- 
derstood you ! Why, one of the first things I remember 
about you is — something you said, talking here with 
poor dear Walter and Horace, which first put it into 
my little empty head, that a woman could, and per- 
haps ought, to be something and do something of her- 
self.” 

“ Theory, my love. When it comes to action, most 
of us regulate ourselves by the conscience of custom ; 
and so should I have done, and should do perhaps, but 
25 * 


294 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


for Mrs. Single’s rebuff. In one respect too, 1 am de- 
lighted to find what injustice I have done her. She 
does love her husband. — I suppose I must not ask 
whether that was always so.” 

“No, dear Ernest; I know you will not.” 

“And in spite of his being poor !” 

“ She loves him the better for that. If pity is akin 
to love, so is respect ; and they both seem to pity each 
other for their misfortunes, and to respect each other 
for the way in which they bear them. She loves him, 
I believe, as she never knew what it was to love any 
one before, — except her poor little baby; half her heart 
is still in its grave.” 

“And what a devoted mother she is to the little 
girls I” 

She was ; and it was all the more to her present 
credit for the fact, that devotion to them was in some 
respects more of a duty than of a pleasure. The 
younger was trying to get a tooth, and was quite out 
of patience with it ; and the older was still less an en- 
gaging child. It had not only indefinable kitchen looks 
and tones, — picked up probably in too indiscriminate 
association with servants, — but a hatred and horror of 
all younger children which positively embittered its 
little life, and which poor Rosamond was said to at- 
tribute, perhaps with too much truth, to the state of 
her own mind before its birth. However, that is a 
digression. 

The next day the family-party, and Mr. Wentworth 
among them, went in procession to the old studio, now 
hung chiefly with Agnes’s efforts, but with two of 
Ernest’s effects besides. One was the old fantasia 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


295 


upon the Waverley Oaks ; and the other, the new pic- 
ture, which he had brought them to see. 

It was a scene in a crypt. A warrior in armor was 
fixed upon a tomb, but in a half-sitting posture. The 
lower part of the form was rigid, and apparently of 
stone, but the upper, full of desperate, struggling life. 
The arms were outstretched, as if for help, towards a 
hovering golden- haired angel, with snowy wings, 
translucent green robes, a lily on its heart, and in its 
hands an alabaster lamp that illuminated the blind 
mildewed roof and floor. 

“ What’s the subject?” — cried the bewildered Single. 
“ The king of the Black Islands ?” 

“ Guess again, dear,” said Rosamond. “ You would 
not call that Oriental architecture.” 

“No, to be sure ; Gothic, I see.” 

“ But what a beautiful likeness I” cried Rosamond. 
“ When did you sit, Agnes ?” 

“ Never; and Ernest did not intend it for me.” 

“Is it possible?” said Mr. Wentworth, wiping his 
glasses and trying them again. “ Why, I should say 
it was a remarkably accurate likeness, except that it 
is so much flattered; and that, I supposed, you in- 
tended.” 

Agnes led off a hearty laugh at this, in which Ernest 
alone did not join ; for he alone could not perceive the 
justice of the remark. 

“And the likeness to yourself?” continued old Mr. 
Wentworth, who had a quick and true eye. 

“Oh, I hope not!” exclaimed Agnes, glancing from 
the knight to Ernest, “ it looks too unblest.” 

“Not for me at the time it was done,” answered 


296 


AONES WENTWORTH. 


Vernon. “ I looked about for the most unhappy- 
looking man I could find, for a model, and found him 
in my mirror. That likeness, as far as it goes, was 
intentional, but is much more sketchy and shadowy, 
as you perceive, than the other. Of course, I did not 
mean it to be very noticeable.” 

“ What is the subject?” repeated Single. 

“An odd, apocryphal old monkish legend, incon- 
sistent enough, but not without its picturesqueness. 
A Viking was betrothed to a maiden. She became 
one of the first Christian converts in Scandinavia. 
The Viking’s kindred followed suit. He stood fast by 
his heathenism, broke his lady-love’s heart, became, 
after her death, more and more wolfish and unen- 
durable, and was at last hunted down like the wild- 
beast that he was, and killed. In spite of all, he was, 
at the prayers and tears of his saintly mother, allowed 
burial in a cathedral she had built. Meantime, while 
he was in a worse place, his lady-love was in purga- 
tory, and could not get out. Her offences were 
neither very many nor very heinous ; but she never 
could remember them, nor spare a single orison for 
her own deliverance, so busy was she in praying for 
him. At last some angel, — I forget who, — Gabriel, 
we will say, or Michael, — happened to fly over, heard 
her, and informed St. Peter that he was making a 
great mistake in keeping her there so long, for love so 
holy and so disinterested as hers was in itself a full 
atonement for faults so venial and so unintentional. 
Thereupon discharged, she flew up to heaven with her 
petition, and straightway returned with a warrant to 
release her wicked lover from the bonds both of the 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


29t 

first and of the second death. You see her in the act 
of lighting him up from the charnel-house.” 

“And was that the end of his story ?” asked Agnes 
shyly. 

“ Not quite,” answered Yernon, with a smile. 
“ Guided by her, he went on pilgrimage to the Holy 
Land, was baptized in the Jordan, and spent the rest 
of his threescore and ten in good works ; after which 
she flew back, with him, to Paradise.” 

All were silent for a few minutes ; for the solemn 
and tender beauty of one aspect of the picture, and the 
strong appalling gloom of the other, began to lay hold 
on the souls of the least susceptible among them and 
to draw, and awe, them under that spell, which it is the 
prerogative of the highest art to cast over human 
nature. 

Single was the first to break it: “You have ex- 
plained all but the likeness to Agnes. — Even my eyes 
can see that.” 

“ That is what I cannot explain, — unless indeed by 
supposing that my brain unconsciously took and re- 
tained a photograph of her capacities for future beauty. 
She certainly was not very pretty as a child, — was 
she? — You did not think her so, did you?” said he, 
appealing to her sister and father, — “ or even at the 
time of my second visit to you ? — In fact, I don’t re- 
member that I ever looked at her then; and, at the 
time this picture was painted, I should have been 
very much at a loss to say how she looked, though I 
could recollect a number of things that she said.” 

The other gentlemen left the room. Rosamond fol- 
lowed them; and Agnes, Rosamond. As Yernon 


298 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


brought up the rear, he added in a low tone, “ There 
was one point, which I might have explained a little 
further : For more years than I can tell, — it dates at 
least as far back as that brain-fever I had, when I was 
a collegian, — I have been visited when ill, or in any 
way unhinged, by an apparition of an angel. That 
was my model. Just before I painted the picture, 1 
heard of the war. Earth seemed to be rolling from 
under my feet; and I had no hold on heaven. In 
desperation, I went into the church of Santa Lucia 
di * * * and prayed for light from above. I fell asleep ; 
and again that angel with yonr countenance appeared 
to me. Prophetic, wasn’t it ?” 

Agnes pressed his hand and ran faster down before 
him, calling, “ Rosamond, will you wait where you 
are, for us ? I have something to show to you and 
Ernest.” 

She led them to an old, claw-footed, brass key- 
holed wardrobe near the next landing, and, as they 
waited in wonder beside her, took out her split-ring, 
chose a key, and unlocked a drawer. There lay the 
little, girlish, quaint, forgotten gala-dress, of twelve 
long years ago, — the thin, slight robe outstretched 
like a shroud of departed childhood, the lilies dried 
to mummies at the breast, and the small hat at the 
head. The moths had eaten too much of the white 
wing ; for heedless little Agnes had taken no thought 
for that. So trivial things pass away and vanish, 
but leave their traces upon things that last. The mys- 
tery of the picture was cleared up. 


AGN£S WENTWORTH. 


299 


CHAPTER XL. 

A FORTNIGHT afterwards, Yernon invited me to his 
wedding. For various reasons, the party was small. 
Paul Dudley was bidden, however ; and nothing 
would have given him more pleasure than to accept, 
but for two insurmountable impediments. First: 
Having lost the last remains of his heart to Miss 
Wentworth, on the night that he rode under her com- 
mand to Hatcher’s Run, he could not stand tamely by 
to see her hand bestowed upon another. Secondly: 
The general of his brigade was too much attached to 
him ever to allow him leave of absence, unless when 
he could contrive to throw himself upon the points of 
his enemies’ swords ; of which there was no present 
opportunity.” For the long bad dream of the war was 
at an end. 

The ceremony took place in church. Yernon pre- 
viously promised obedience to his mistress for all the 
rest of his life, if she would only not ask him to forego 
the ecstasy of seeing her, at dusk, glide up the lighted 
aisle in her white veil and orange-blossoms. (I believe 
he would have made her exchange her white muslin 
for a green one if he could ; but that, even the tolerant 
Miss Arden joined Mrs. Single in assuring him that 
he could not.) So the handful of us, his old friends, 
who were in the secret, did our best, by seeing to the 
warming of the building, to guard him from that mys- 


soo 


AGIiES WENTWORTH. 


terious, and doubtless tremendous, retribution de- 
nounced against the exposure by Mrs. Tibbets under 
the name of “ his deathy cold.” 

We had our reward in our share of the spectacle. I 
li^ver saw a man look so superbly happy as Yernon, 
nor a maiden in such a trance of white angelic rapture 
as Agnes. After we returned to the house, wishing 
to make her speak to me, I said to her not much mind- 
ing what, “ Where are you to live?” 

“I am to live with Mr. Yernon,” said she, turning 
her large, clear, amber-colored ejms slowly upon my 
face; “ he is going to take me to fairy-land.” 

I bowed, and accepted the statement with unques- 
tioning confidence, and with as much solemnity as any 
man could get up upon short notice ; but the matter-of- 
fact Single must needs explain: “To Italy, Mrs. Yer- 
non means;” and Agnes’s blush enabled me for the 
first time to understand how the bridegroom could 
think her a beauty. 

He came to the rescue : “ Yes ; Drs. Brodie and Ar- 
den are hurrying us ofi*. It is impossible, we find, for 
me to live out-of-doors in these east winds ; and, after 
the free hardy life I had been leading, I am ready to 
tear down the walls when I am pent up within them. 
On my wife’s account too, 1 am very anxious, — and 
they say not unreasonably so — for an entire change 
before she shows, any more than she does already, the 
effect of the long strain of the war.” 

Agnes turned to answer some one else, who spoke 
to her. 

“Yernon,” said Single abruptly, “I was told to-day, 
that young Rantinoll of Charleston claims to be the 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


301 


sharp-shooter who did your business. Did you know 
it?” 

“ I have heard it,” replied Yernon. 

“ Do you know him ?” persisted Single. 

“ I ought to,” sajd Ernest, coloring through the 
transparent skin of a convalescent. (Rantipoll was 
his brother-in-law.) “ There is another thing that 
ought to be known about it, however,” he added. I 
was just picking up a little Confederate drummer, who 
called on me for help. At the distance at which Ran- 
tipoll spied me, he might naturally enough think I was 
making prisoners.” 

Yernon turned away ; and Agnes returned eagerly. 

Did I hear you telling something about Mr. Yernon ?” 
asked she timidly of Single and me. 

Single opened his mouth ; but luckily my words 
came first: “We were talking of a traitor of a fellow 
who took aim at him. You would not like to hear 
about that?” 

“ Oh, no I” Her breath quickened; and she fanned 
herself. 

“ Does Mr. Wentworth go abroad with you ?” asked 
somebody else at her elbow. 

“No; we hoped that he would; but not even Italy can 
tempt him away from Boston ; and he and my sister and 
brother will take care of one another here for the present.” 

“I heard something else though, from the officer I 
was talking with to-day, which Mrs. Yernon will be 
interested in,” resumed Single, getting the floor as 
soon as the querist yielded it. “Major Williams, — he 
was at the surrender of Charleston, you remember, 
Mr. Foxton ?” — 


26 


302 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“ Perfectly.” 

“Well — did Yernon ever tell you about it, Agnes?” 

“No. In fact, I never quite knew whether he was 
there or not. A mail-bag was lost just then; there 
was a break between his letters ; and I never ventured 
to ask him.” 

“ Well,” repeated Single, “ as I stood at the foot of 
the steps of the Somerset Club, this morning, just 
shaking hands with the Major, Yernon drove by in a 
coach. ‘ By George,’ said Williams, — ‘ there went Sir 
Beaumayns ! I never expected to see him again !’ 

‘ Sir what, Williams V said I. ‘ What a humorist you 
always were for pseudonyms ! That was Ernest Yer- 
non, the great rising artist of the day.’ ‘You don’t 
mean so !’ said the Major. ‘ Well, I must have made a 
mistake then, I suppose ; but he is the very twin- 
brother of one of our ambulance men, that I saw the 
day we took possession of Charleston. A noble-look- 
ing fellow he was too,’ said the Major, ‘ standing with 
his broad-brimmed hat slouched over his eyes, and his 
arms folded, leaning against the charred post of a porch. 
A party of what, for want of better, pass for ladies 
down there — fine-looking women enough, too, — looked 
as if they knew how to behave better if they chose, — 
they were dividing their attention impartially between 
reviling him and packing their goods and chattels into 
one of his ambulances. If that’s all the thanks they’ve 
got for you,’ says the Major, ‘ why don’t you leave 
them and their duds to take care of themselves?’ 
The man, or gentleman, looked as if he had a great 
mind to work off the irritation by knocking Williams 
down ; but he thought better of it, and only showed 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


303 


him a pass from Sherman, authorizing Mrs. Somebody 
or other with her daughters to be removed with their 
effects to a place of safety. ‘ Well, you know your own 
business, and how to keep your own counsel, I see,’ 
said the Major. The man bowed, helped the ladies in 
as politely as they would let him, while his myrmidons 
followed him on horseback but, by his orders, out of 
ear-shot; ‘and after that,’ said Williams, ‘I always 
dubbed him in my memory Sir Beaumayns, after the 
patient knight in the Morte d’ Arthur.’ Well,” con- 
cluded Single, “thought I, ‘you haven’t made out your 
case against its being Yernon ;’ but I kept my opinion 
to myself.” 

“ I am so glad you did,” said Agnes, with the tears 
in her eyes ; “ and I know Mr. Foxton will do so too.” 

And so I do. 


CHAPTERXLI. 

Once since then, I have seen Agnes and Ernest 
Yernon. It was last May-day. Walking, somewhat 
at a loss, down a long street in an Italian city, I was 
suddenly furnished with a clue to them by a magnifi- 
cent tenor voice which startled me by striking up, at 
no great distance, a few notes of a not unfamiliar air 
with the words, 

“ Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,” etc. 

Following the music I came, just as it paused, to a con- 
ventual-looking gate. I rang ; and my summons was 
answered by the primeval Tibbets, looking so ruefully 


304 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


like old times and so queerly out of place, that she 
made me feel like the unworthy and unfortunate 
“Frederick [who] leaves the land of France.” 

Having executed with her venerable features that 
rare and difficult contortion which stood her in stead for 
a smile, she informed me that “ Mr. an’ Miss Yernon 
was engaged to mornin’-callers, but would be to home 
to” me. She led me along a cloister, running around 
an antique garden with a sun-dial at one end and a 
fountain at the other, and knocked at a door. 

It was opened ; and, through the vine which drooped 
over it, I had a vision of a transfigured Agnes. Greet- 
ing me with a frank, cordial, light-hearted dignity, 
which became her infinitely, she thrust a hand, moulded 
like a statue’s and tinted like tropical shells, pearly 
white without and rose-color within, through the 
thick veil of leaves, to hold it up for my entrance, 
and turning her head over her magnificent shoulder, 
cried, “ Ernest, here is a gentleman you will be so glad 
to see 1” 

By the time I was clear of the vine, he had freed 
himself likewise from his palette and brushes, and was 
coming up in his velvet coat to shake both hands with 
me. He and his wife seemed like a boy and girl on a 
picnic. 

“ Yernon,” cried I, “how grandly you are looking 
— and painting I I don’t know which to look at first, 
you or your walls, — ” “or your wife,” I could have 
added ; for it is impossible for me to describe the change, 
— or perhaps I should rather say developement in her. 
She was blooming, brilliant, and radiant with the luxu- 
riant fulness of health of body and soul. The shade of 


AGXES WENTWORTH. 


805 


dejection and anxiety which, in her girlhood, often cast 
a suspicion of sickliness and premature age upon her 
young countenance, had given place to the lovely, in- 
spired expression of the fortunate ptist, — as of one who 
sees something beautiful in the distance forever draw- 
ing nearer. Perhaps one of the joys of heaven will be, 
that we shall there see everybody made the best of in 
the most favorable circumstances and under the happi- 
est influences. If so, then and there we may hope to 
see more women like Agnes. 

‘‘ We are as well as I hoped we should be,” said 
Vernon, answering for both as if I had spoken of both. 
“ Italy has set us up more than America had pulled 
us down. As for our painting, we neither of us find 
that we have lost anything by taking a partner, or by 
letting our canvas lie fallow as it did in the war. See 
here and he showed me a Titianesque, perfect little 
gem of a picture, to which Agnes was just putting the 
last touches, by order, for a little Norwegian prince; 
it was of Hans Christian Andersen’s princess borne 
ov^er the sea by the wild swans, her enchanted brothers. 

‘'Do you still find time for painting then, Mrs. Ver- 
non asked I, a little surprised. 

“ Oh, yes,” answered she, with a blush and a smile, 
“ three or four hours a day at present, — and that is as 
much, we think, as is good for me. It is such second 
nature to me, that I should grieve sadly to give it up ; 
and of course I must, if I ever discovered that it was 
putting in peril the health or spirits of my little dears’ 
mamma. — You know Ernest and I always liked sim- 
ple ways of living best, and they save me time. Be- 
sides, there is a brownie in this studio ; and when I 
26 * 


306 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


leave my picture, to see after our other affairs, and 
come back to it again, I often find it has grown. In- 
deed I often fancy, the more I leave it, the better for it. 
But I want you to see. our little boy and girl presently.” 
She went towards a glass-door opposite to the almost 
unused one by which I had entered. 

Meantime walking around the room with Yernon, 1 
was pleased to see the compound cipher in the cor- 
ner of several of the most striking of the pictures ; and 
he told me that Agnes usually sketched for him all his 
cherubs and children. I thought I could see besides 
what he did not tell me, that she had done for him 
much more than that — more than her sister had un- 
done, — by bringing hope, joy, and peace into his life. 

“ But where is your Venus, Yernon ?” said I ; for I 
had heard a good deal of it. 

“ In some ash-heap or other,” returned he, looking 
into vacancy as if in search of it, and giving a pensive 
twirl to his moustache. 

“ Burnt, was it ? What a pity I How came that ?” 

“ I took the precaution to come in here, to look about, 
before I brought Agnes. When I came upon that 
beautiful demon again, I. saw it with new eyes, and did 
not fancy the idea of seeing her in the same room with 
it. They would have harmonized like rose-color and 
scarlet. Notwithstanding I give you my word that, 
when I painted it, I meant no mischief.. I thought 
only of dramatic effect. However” 

“ But could not you have sold it ?” 

“ Fast enough now-a-days ; but you seem not to un- 
derstand, Foxton. What my wife would have shrunk 
from, it was not for me to set before the eyes of other 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


30t 


women ; and what was no fit household goddess for me 
would have done no good in the home of any fellow- 
man ” 

Then, recollecting myself, I did understand. It was 
a case of cutting off the right hand that might have 
offended, if not one’s-self, one’s neighbor. 

Mrs. Yernon who was standing, waiting probably 
for a pause in our chat, at the glass-door, now beckoned 
to me. I came to her and looked through it. A cur- 
tain on the other side was looped back, so as to afford 
us a view of two superb two-year-old children, with a 
strangely familiar expression in their new little faces, pic- 
turesquely asleep together on a tiger-skin, “Agnes and 
Walter,” murmured the young mother, in a tone that 
made the words seem a caress, and with all the sweet- 
ness of maternity hallowing her fair countenance ; “ does 
not that sound like old times ? We do not like to have 
them further away, on account of a dreadful accident 
that happened to the poor little baby -boy of — of a rela- 
tion of ours. They breakfast with us, and then play 
in the garden, and have their luncheon and nap here, 
under Nurse’s charge. When they wake, or soon after, 
I go to them. Nothing rests one so much as watching 
pretty little children at their play,” added she with the 
simplicity of full conviction. 

“‘Otic,’ — no doubt,” thought I, as I watched the 
gaze she fixed upon them. 

“ Does Nurse ‘ solemnize’ them ?” asked I, involun- 
tarily. 

“ At her peril,” answered Mistress Agnes, looking 
alike merry and royal. 

“Not she,” added Yernon; “she used up all the 


308 


AO NFS WENTWORTH. 


discipline in making their mother good ; she pets them 
like a grandmother.^’ 

“ She has actually made two new wrinkles in the 
bridge other nose, by practising smiles at them.” 

“ Here is another of our partnership pictures,” said 
Vernon pointing to his easel. I conjugally stole it 
from one of Mrs. Vernon’s magic scrap-books ; and I 
had my punishment ; for it is so extremely horrid , — 
to borrow a lady’s word, — that she had to sit by me by 
the hour while I was working it up, with her hand on 
my shoulder to keep me from shivering.” 

I did not wonder. Vernon’s drawing, though neither 
stolen nor borrowed, is akin to that of Kaulbach ; his 
taste and sentiment are mediaeval ; his coloring is his 
own. In fact his peculiar strength lies — so at least other 
artists say — in what may be called the dramatic effect of 
color, — in the mastery of hues, and of the feelings and 
the fancy by means of them. All these qualifications 
of his had reached their highest achievement, — high- 
est, up to that time at least,— in the picture before me. 
It brought to sight the story — to my mind the most 
horrible in the whole Inferno , — told by Guido da Mon- 
tefeltro in the eighth pit, — the story of the penitent 
knave and knavish Franciscan, absolved by the pope, 
and seized by the fiend. 

In the background you saw the body of the dead 
monk, stark and stiff, girded with the cord and robed, 
stretched on a pallet in his cell. At his head behind 
him, a gorgeous great stained-glass window, — an 
anomaly, I suspected, but a fine one, — sowed spots of 
colored light about, and, as one felt rather than saw 
through the distance, gave him additional deathliness 


AQNES WENTWORTH. 


309 


by contrast. Another monk, with the Host, was just 
leaving him, having administered the last rites and se- 
cured — if forms could do it — his eternal salvation. 

In the foreground, writhing with despair, knelt the 
naked soul St. Francis, duly come down for it and 
hovering in the air at its right hand, held out to it the 
holy rood — in vain I For, at its left, was the nearer 
“black cherub” half risen through the stone-paved 
floor, braving the saint, even while shrinking away 
from the cross behind the victim, but dragging him 
backward and downward by the hair. The trans- 
parent topaz light above and around the noble and 
venerable figure of St. Francis, and the sulphurous 
flamy blue, creeping through the floor below and 
around the mocking avenger, were insensibly and 
mysteriously blended over the form of the lost, into a 
greenish ghastliness that made one’s blood run cold. 
The black-letter motto raised upon the ready frame, 
that stood by, was of course, 

“ Assolver non si pu6 chi non si pente; 

Nd pentere e volere insieme puossi.” 

“A good lesson, isn’t it,” said Yernon, “for these 
papists round us ? We may say to their eyes some 
things that we must not to their ears.” 

“ ‘A good lesson for’ them ? Yes, and for some of 
us Protestants at home too. My dear friends, what en- 
viable creatures — and creators — you are I” 

“Most enviable indeed,” echoed Yernon, for very 
pleasure at the truth of nTy exclamation, making fun 
of it; “orders come in faster than we can fulfil 
them.” 


310 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


“And bow do the critics do uow-a-days, you walk- 
ing sensitive-plant I knew ; or I should not have 
asked him. 

“ They treat us better than we deserve. — Fortunate 
for some of us too, isn’t it, Agnes ? ‘ It is so bad for 

people to be angry !’ ” 

“ Oh, Mr. Foxton,” cried Agnes, coloring and laugh- 
ing as she parried this home-thrust, “who, do you 
think, is Ernest’s most enthusiastic admirer?” 

“ Myself.” 

“No; that very Mr. Maulstick.” 

“ What ? — your Carnifex ?” 

“ Precisely,” said Yernon. 

“How did you convert him?” said I to Yernon. 

“ He grew famous,” said Agnes drily, answering 
for him. 

“Agnes has never forgiven Maulstick, though, to 
this day,” said Yernon, teasing her. (They called 
each other by their Christian names to me, because I 
knew them both so well, and her from childhood.) 

“ Now, Ernest ! You know that I forgive him some- 
thing, every time he comes.” 

cried I; “and pray what was the last — 
occasion of your clemency ?” 

“ He congratulated me on Ernest’s marvellous im- 
provement since his first pictures were exhibited in 
America, and mentioned his Isabella and Columbus as 
a fine specimen of his second manner.” 

“ He had forgotten it ?” 

“If you can conceive of such a thing, — yes I” said 
Agnes, evidently incapable herself of any such con- 
ception. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


311 


“ If I had not scowled at my liege-lady in a 
manner that has since served her for a brace or two 
of bandits, I believe she would have confronted the 
poor fellow with the facts, then and there,” said 
Yernon. 

‘‘ Certainly I should. However, I was glad after- 
wards that I did not. Ernest wants no aid, thank 
heaven ; but there are struggling artists who do ; and 
Mr. Maulstick is rich and generous, and very happy 
now to take his opinions ready made from Mr. Yernon, 
and to act accordingly. Under proper direction, I 
believe he does a great deal of good. It would have 
been throwing away influence very foolishly, if I had 
offended him.” 

Excusing herself for a moment, she presently returned, 
looking like Ceres, laden with bread, fruit, and violet- 
scented Capri for us, each the best of its kind, and all 
served with that picturesque and dainty simplicity 
which was an instinct with her. When we had taken 
them from her, and helped her and ourselves, she began, 
hesitating a little about asking what she wanted to 
know, even of me, “ Mr. Foxton,— I hear from Rosa- 
mond every fortnight. She writes cheerfully, but — 
have you seen her lately ?” 

“Within a week of my sailing. It is always a 
pleasure, in itself, to see her ; and then I thought it 
would make you more glad to see me. She never ap- 
peared to more advantage, nor Mr. Single either. In 
fact, I think they go on from good to better, — as most 
of us should do, and — don’t.” 

“Wentworths make good wives,” said Yernon. 

“ She is happy then,” Agnes at last ventured iruLkly 


312 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


to ask, “la spite of their misfortunes, she is really 
happy 

I could not venture upon asserting quite so much 
as that. In fact, part of poor Miss Berry’s pros- 
pective epitaph* upon herself reads to me like a pro- 
phecy of poor Rosamond Single. Therefore I did 
what I could to assume the elderly and paternal : 
“My dear young friend,” replied I, “I have lived 
rather longer than you ; but I have not chanced to 
meet with many people who were happy, as you 
Mr. Vernon are happy. Mrs. Single’s lot in life seems 
to me to be considerably above the average ; and she 
appears to make the most of it. She is very much oc- 
cupied, very useful, and very much beloved. Her little 
daughters are as pretty as her little daughters ought 
to be, and as well-behaved as they are pretty; and, as 
for Mr. Single, it is strange to behold such an old 
bachelor, as he was growing, so intimate with a wife. 
But after all, philosophize as we may, the gratification 
of our natural tastes is no inconsiderable ingredient in 
the happiness of this world. I never saw people with 
a stronger natural taste than theirs for the pleasures 
of wealth; and I hardly imagine that she did by nature 
incline to needle- work or nursery-work, or he to read- 
ing other persons’ proof a or revising their manu- 
scripts.” 

Agnes sighed. “ How fortunate it is, however,” 
said she recovering herself, “ that he is so well fitted 
for the business ! He took the best lessons which were 
to be had, when he was at Cambridge, that he might 


* 8ee Note. 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


313 


correct for himself the history he meant to write. Poor 
Horace !” 

“ He told me that Mrs. Single took much interest 
in helping him,” said I ; “ and that her aid was 
very valuable to him, on account of her Mrouger 
eyes. ” 

“ On account of her truer taste in style, I should 
think it might be still more so,” said Vernon. 

I did not think it necessary to state, that I doubted 
!', whether Single would recognize the latter advantage. 
But I have often noticed, that men’s estimate of the in- 
tellects of women was curiously in direct ratio as their 
own amount of intellect. 

Rosamond always had a certain taste for hard 
work,” added Agnes. “ She writes me word that both 
of my little nieces show a remarkable ear for music ; 
and that she is determined to have them thoroughly 
trained, in both the art and the science, for giving les- 
sons in it, and to make no secret of the object, so that 
no false shame may stand in the way if they ever want 
work or wages.” 

- Then we talked of Mr. Wentworth’s green old age 
which, blighted for a time by the death of his son, was 
finding a new spring in the cherishing of his little 
grandchildren, and then of Ernest’s and Agnes’s return 
to Boston, in the course of five or six years, to bring 
up the new Agnes and Walter as American citizens ; 
and then, in spite of many kind dissuasions, unwill- 
ingly I took my leave. 

As I walked away, I made a number of striking and 
original reflections, as, for example, that “ I’homme pro- 
pose, et Dieu dispose:” Rosamond and Horace Single, 

27 


3U 


AGNES WENTWORTH. 


seeking in marriage merely selfish pleasure, had lost 
it, and in losing it had found a batter thing, namely, 
mutual affection ; while Agnes and Ernest Yernon, 
seeking in wedlock only one another’s hearts, had won 
besides prosperity and fame. 


NOTES. 


Page 227. The book given to Mr. Yernon by the dying soldier 
was “ Discourses on the Doctrines of Christianity, by William 
G. Eliot, Pastor of the Church of the Messiah, St. Louis.” 

Page 268. Telegraph. The author’s use of this harmless 
word, here and elsewhere, is not an inadvertence. A well- 
founded fear of being more nice than wise, and a regard for con- 
sistency, withhold him from uttering the new-fangled “tele- 
gram” until he is prepared to say photogram and lithogram. 

Page 281. “ Eorm in which the creed was used in the second, 
third, and fourth centuries, and * * * considered the suffi- 
cient rule of faith in the Church until the year 325: 

“‘I believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus 
Christ, His only Son, our Lord ; who was, by the Holy Ghost, 
born of the Virgin Mary; under Pontius Pilate he was cruci- 
fied and buried; the third day he rose from the dead; he 
ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of the 
Father ; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the 
dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy Church ; the for 
giveness of sins ; the resurrection of the body, and life ever- 
lasting.’ ”* 


“ Discourses on the Doctrines of Christianity,” by William G. 
Eliot, Pastor of the Church of the Messiah, St. Louis, Missouri. 

( 315 ) 


316 


NOTES. 


Page 312. miss berry’s epitaph upon herself. 

“Beneath this stone is deposited 
The dust of one whom — 

Remarkable for personal beauty — 
Considerable superiority of intellect, 
Singular quickness of the senses, 

And the noblest endowments of the Heart, 
Neither distinguished, served, nor 
Rendered happy. She was 
Admired and neglected. 

Believed and mistaken. 

Respected and insignificant. 

She endured years of a useless existence, 

Of which the happiest moment was that 
In which her spirit returned to the bosom 
Of an Almighty and Merciful 
Creator.” 


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